To The Teacher
Since President Trump took office in January, he has issued a historic number of executive orders, many of which push against the established limits of presidential power.
This two-part lesson, intended for high school students, consists of two readings that will examine the limits on presidential power in the United States government and examine what authority the president legally holds through executive orders.
The first reading will look at the origins of the “separation of powers” as a legal doctrine and question what recent actions taken by President Trump might violate this principle. The second reading will discuss how various political groups, such as Congress, the courts, and the American public, have responded to Trump’s actions. Questions for discussion follow each reading, feel free to modify the questions for your students’ needs and current knowledge base of US government processes.
For a post-reading activity, we suggest: Exploring “Power Over” and “Power With”
Photo by David Everett Strickler on Unsplash
Reading One: Why The President Is Not a King
Since President Trump took office in January, he has issued a historic number of executive orders, many of which push against the established limits of presidential power. In claiming sole authority to implement his agenda, Trump has challenged the idea of “checks and balances,” or the multiple processes which stop a single leader from becoming too powerful. In this way, he’s recreating the monarchical government system in Britain the American Revolution sought to remove. Central to the idea of “checks and balances” is the “separation of powers” as conceived by the framers of the U.S. Constitution, in which judicial, executive, and legislative branches of the U.S. government work together within a system of distributed power.
So, what authority does the president actually have to make executive orders, and what are the limitations? David Lopez, professor of law and dean emeritus of Rutgers Law School, examined Trump's recent actions in a February 2025 article for U.S. News. Lopez wrote:
I learned basic civics in my public school. But mostly – because it was more interesting – I also learned civics after school by watching “Schoolhouse Rock!,” an animated series with amusing rhyming lyrics and catchy tunes. It debuted on television in 1973 and included lessons on the Constitution, how bills become laws, women’s suffrage and more… For many in my generation, [Schoolhouse Rock!] was our introduction to the separation of powers and the checks and balances built into the U.S. government. We learned that Congress passes laws, the president administers laws, and the courts interpret laws.
This elegant but simple system stood in contrast to the nearly unshackled power of the British king, who ruled over the American colonies before independence.…
During his first month back in office, President Donald Trump has pushed to shift the balance of powers by seeking to exert expansive and far-reaching executive authority. These actions imperil the power of elected members of Congress to pass legislation, oversee the federal government and exercise the spending authority that the Constitution grants to them – not to the president.
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Under the Constitution, Congress has the power to set spending amounts and priorities for the federal government. By law, the executive branch cannot spend what has not been approved and appropriated by Congress – nor can the executive branch refuse to spend that money once it has been approved.
Soon after he took office, however, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget ordered a pause to Congressionally-approved federal grants and loans to organizations and programs ranging from Head Start to farm subsidies.
Almost immediately, several states, concerned about the loss of essential federal services, filed a lawsuit to halt the freeze. A federal court in Rhode Island sided with them and temporarily paused the freeze.
The judge rejected the Trump administration’s argument that it must “align Federal spending and action with the will of the American people as expressed through Presidential priorities,” calling it “constitutionally flawed.” The judge concluded that the president could not act unilaterally, or on his own, under the Constitution.
“Congress has not given the Executive limitless power to broadly and indefinitely pause all funds that it has expressly directed to specific recipients and purposes,” wrote Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. “The Executive’s actions violate the separation of powers.”...
Several of the Trump administration’s recent actions appear designed to test the legality of a more Kinglike view of presidential powers.
Trump even likened himself to a king in a Feb. 19 post on his social media platform Truth Social, boasting that he had killed off New York City’s congestion pricing for vehicles. “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED,” he wrote. “LONG LIVE THE KING!”
So far, Congress has mostly remained silent as the executive branch invades its sphere of authority.
In contrast, the courts have served as a check on Trump’s power by temporarily stalling more than a dozen of his presidential actions that seem to surpass the executive powers permitted under various laws and the Constitution. But the immediate harm caused by potentially unlawful presidential overreach could be difficult to roll back.
[https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2025-02-24/donald-trump-king-supreme-court-congress]
Understanding the historic roles of Congress and the Judiciary branch is key to knowing how they will react to Trump’s overreaches of power. In a February 2025 article for The New York Times, writer German Lopez explained how checks and balances play out in practice. Lopez wrote:
In the United States, Congress, the president and the courts are supposed to keep an eye on one another — to stop any one branch of government from becoming too powerful. President Trump is showing us what happens when those checks and balances break down.
The president can’t shut down agencies that Congress has funded, yet that’s what Trump did, with Elon Musk’s help, to the U.S. Agency for International Development. The president can’t fire inspectors general without giving lawmakers 30 days’ notice, but Trump dismissed 17 of them anyway. Congress passed a law forcing TikTok to sell or close, and the courts upheld it, but Trump declined to enforce it.
“The president is openly violating the law and Constitution on a daily basis,” said Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College.
…The framers wanted to avoid crowning another king. They believed that no one person could truly represent the whole country. (Consider that Trump won less than half of the vote.) So they dispersed power among the three branches. The president is just one person, Yuval Levin, a conservative analyst, told The Times. In a vast country, representation “has to be done by a plural institution like Congress.”
[https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/briefing/a-constitutional-crisis.html]
In this moment of political upheaval, the legislative and judicial branches of government are being tested. The coming months will determine whether the other two branches of government will behave independently, as envisioned in the Constitution, or act in accordance with the wishes of the executive.
For Discussion:
- How much of the material in this reading was new to you, and how much was already familiar? What questions, thoughts, or feelings do you have about what you read?
- What is the separation of powers? Why did the framers of the constitution want a system that included checks and balances between the three branches of government?
- According to the reading, what are two ways in which President Trump has “pushed to shift the balance of powers” by solely relying on executive power?
- What do you make of Trump calling himself a King? How does this make you feel?
- What thoughts or ideas do you have about how power operates in the U.S. government? What seems fair? What seems unfair?
Reading Two: How Congress, Courts, and the Public Have Responded
While Trump may continue to call himself a king, Americans do not seem ready to accept this form of governance. A variety of groups across the country have organized to speak out against executive power grabs and reject the idea of having a king for president. Additionally, the remaining branches of government—the legislative and the judicial—have responded to Trump’s actions in a variety of ways. In a February 2024 article for The New York Times reporters Minho Kim, Stephanie Saul, and Winnie Hu described some of the actions that have taken place. The reporters wrote:
Thousands of protesters opposing broad swaths of President Trump’s agenda took to the streets across the United States on Monday, calling Mr. Trump a “king” on Presidents’ Day for his efforts to terminate thousands of federal workers and to fire prosecutors and independent watchdogs within the federal government.
On Saturday, Mr. Trump suggested on social media that he would not heed concerns that his sweeping actions could be breaking laws, posting a riff on a phrase often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: “He who saves his country does not violate any law.”
“No king, no crown, we will not back down,” chanted those who gathered a few hundred feet from the U.S. Capitol on the National Mall in Washington.
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“There’s nothing more patriotic than fighting against tyranny,” said Kat Duesterhaus, who traveled from Miami to join the Washington protest. “We’re out here because we are patriots.”
The protests came as Democrats have struggled to counter Mr. Trump’s moves, with Republicans holding majorities in both the House and the Senate and Democratic leaders and operatives worried about alienating voters in reacting hastily without reflecting first on why they lost in 2024. Many activists, however, have voiced frustration at the lack of a more aggressive stance.
Kaitlin Robertson, a protest participant who does advocacy work for domestic violence survivors, carried an upside-down American flag and said the country was in “a constitutional crisis,” a term that some legal scholars have said fits the scope of the Trump administration’s assertions of executive authority in the face of legal challenges.
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Other protesters also blamed Congress for not doing enough to check the Trump administration. Nadya Downs, who led the chant “Where is Congress? Do your job,” said lawmakers needed to better challenge unilateral actions of the Trump administration.
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Lillian Bacon, 25, a college student majoring in political science, said, “I’m here today to fight for democracy and fight for the liberty and dignity of all people.”
It was her first time participating in a public protest. She said she had become furious and disappointed with Mr. Trump, Mr. Musk and Republican leaders over what she saw as their violation of the constitutional separation of powers. “I’m hoping there will be solidarity among all American people even if they did vote for Trump,” she said.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/17/us/politics/trump-musk-protests-50501-presidents-day.html]
Republicans hold majorities in the House and the Senate, but they have done little to push back against the actions of a president from their own party. Instead, greater opposition has come from the third branch of the government, the judicial branch. As Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi wrote for PBS News in February 2025:
A familiar pattern has emerged since President Donald Trump returned to the White House less than three weeks ago: He makes a brash proposal, his opponents file a lawsuit and a federal judge puts the plan on hold.
It’s happened with Trump’s attempts to freeze certain federal funding, undermine birthright citizenship and push out government workers.
Now the question is whether the court rulings are a mere speed bump or an insurmountable roadblock for the Republican president, who is determined to expand the limits of his power — sometimes by simply ignoring the laws.
Although Democrats may be encouraged by the initial round of judicial resistance, the legal battles are only beginning. Lawsuits that originated in more liberal jurisdictions like Boston, Seattle and Washington, D.C., could find their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where a conservative majority has demonstrated its willingness to overturn precedent.
“What’s constitutional or not is only as good as the latest court decision,” said Philip Joyce, a University of Maryland public policy professor.
Roughly three dozens lawsuits have already been filed, including by FBI agents who fear they’re being purged for political reasons and families who are concerned about new limitations on healthcare for transgender youth.
The spotlight on the judiciary is brighter because the Republican-controlled Congress has essentially abdicated its role of serving as a check on the presidency. Lawmakers from Trump’s party have acceded to his demands to unilaterally cut spending and fire government watchdogs without proper notice.
That leaves only the courts as a potential guardrail on the president’s ambitions.
“We’re down to two branches of government,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School.
Since Trump took office Americans have received frequent news of his rapid executive orders and attempts to restructure the U.S. government. Yet the reactions of the courts and protestors demonstrate that some groups of people still wish to maintain checks and balances between the branches of government.
For Discussion:
- How much of the material in this reading was new to you, and how much was already familiar? What questions, thoughts, or feelings do you have about what you read?
- According to the reading, some legal scholars have argued that we are currently facing a “constitutional crisis.” What is the basis for this argument? Do you agree or disagree? Share your position.
- According to the reading, which groups within the government are pushing back more strongly against Trump’s actions, and which are deferring to the executive? What do you think the reasons for this might be?
- What do you think the role of the American public should be in defending the system of checks and balances? Do you think protests are an appropriate response? Why or why not? What are some other ways in which people might express their views?
- If you worked within the other two branches of government (legislative (Congress) or the judicial (the courts), what actions might you consider taking to address the executive branch’s sometimes ignoring of the laws?
–Research assistance provided by Celeste Pepitone-Nahas.