Our guest today, Howard Schewber, says we aren’t yet in a constitutional crisis, but we are in the middle of a constitutional revolution. Trump’s barrage of executive orders is radical, according to Schweber, because it denies Congress the authority of its power over the president. He’s in conversation with Chali Pittman about the separation of powers, the courts, the administrative state, and all the changes that the Trump Administration is making, including a call to end birthright citizenship.

Schweber compares the Trump presidency to the Nixon years, and even to the changes in Wisconsin politics in the last two decades. He puts what’s happening now in the context of the New Deal era when the courts established the principle that presidents couldn’t seize control of government agencies because this was the purview of Congress. But this norm was upended just a few years ago by the Supreme Court. 

We also hear from callers with questions about the power of Elon Musk, a non-elected official, what could happen in 2028, and how democrats in Congress can or should block Trump.

Howard Schweber is emeritus professor of political science and legal studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is the author of several books including The Creation of American Common Law (Cambridge University Press, 2004) and The Language of Liberal Constitutionalism (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Featured image of the US Constitution via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

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