U.S. Politics

Trump Tests Separation of Powers and Constitution

By Mary Alice Miller
When Donald Trump said he would be a dictator on his first day in office, apparently, he wasn’t joking. Among the scores of executive orders he signed on Inauguration Day were challenges to the U.S. Constitution and legislation passed by both Houses of Congress and signed into law.


Trump is testing the limits of his presidential authority. With an eye to the conservative majority Supreme Court, Trump might believe that any lawsuits challenging his executive orders would be decided in his favor.


The 14th Amendment, which granted birthright citizenship to former chattel slaves and their descendants and all people born in the U.S., invalidated the 1857 Dred Scott decision, which ruled that Black people, enslaved or free, were not citizens of the United States and, therefore could not sue in federal courts.


Trump’s executive order invalidating birthright citizenship related to undocumented immigrants comes dangerously close to erasing the outcome of the Civil War for African American citizens, too.


Trump signed an executive order extending a ban on TikTok for 75 days to give his administration time to address the app’s national security concerns. Bipartisan legislation remains in place that would fine companies like Apple and Google if they help users access the app.

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Pursuant to Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders, in an internal memo from the Office of Management and Budget ordered a pause on all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government.

The pause meant to align federal funding to Trump’s agenda of “ending DEI, the Green New Deal, and funding nongovernmental organizations that undermine the national interest.”


The impact was immediate, sparking mass confusion. New York was among many states locked out of the Medicaid reimbursement funding system. NYS receives over $55 billion in Medicaid and about $400 billion in overall federal funding annually.


The White House assured the country that the spending pause would not impact direct funds to individuals, including SNAP, social security, and student loans.
It was unclear how the OMB directive would impact other federal funding, such as shelters, housing subsidies, transit, and health and social programs. It would have defunded the police.


NYS Attorney General Letitia James led a multi-state coalition challenging Trump’s order in federal court. “We are seeking a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction against this illegal act. It exceeds the authority of the president of the United States. It is a violation of the spending clause. The United States Congress has control over the purse,” said James. “This president of the United States cannot disrespect the co-equal branch of government with a stroke of a pen.”

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A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order on Trump’s pause on federal funding until Monday Feb. 3.
On Wednesday, the OMB withdrew its pause on federal funding.
In December 2024, Congress passed, and Biden signed a bill to temporarily extend funding for the federal government to avert a government shutdown. The agreement extends federal funding until March 14, 2025, and includes disaster relief funding. It did not include an extension to the debt ceiling.


The Trump executive order banning diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives on the federal level put all federal employees in DEI positions on paid leave and required all federal agencies to submit a written plan to shut the programs down. Federal workers received an email that threatened consequences for any employee who did not report on co-workers who worked in DEI roles, which may go undetected by the federal government.


Trump’s attack on DEI disproportionately impacts Black and Brown federal employees. But the attack on accessibility is a direct attack on the Americans with Disabilities Act, signed into law in 1990 by President George H. W. Bush.
On a related note, a group of Republican attorneys general sent a letter to Costco demanding that the retailer drop its DEI policy days after Costco’s board rejected a resolution from the conservative think tank National Center for Public Policy Research at its annual shareholder meeting.


Other companies, including Apple, JP Morgan Chase, Pinterest, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Cisco, Delta, and Salesforce, have publicly defended their DEI policies.


Trump signed executive orders banning DEI in the federal government and the private sector, claiming the policies are preferential and identity-based and diminish “the importance of individual merit, aptitude, hard work, and determination.” Trump ordered “all agencies to enforce our long-standing civil rights laws and combat illegal private sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.”

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Trump seems to equate DEI with affirmative action, which was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2023 after a group of Asian students sued Harvard.
“We have no choice but to fight,” said African American Policy Forum Executive Director Kimberle Crenshaw. “They are coming for the entire infrastructure created from Civil Rights.

We cannot have a DEI practice that is not grounded in an analysis of why we need DEI in the first place, which is why they go after our history, why they go after intersectionality, and why they go after our framework. You can’t fix a problem that you cannot name.”


Trump has ordered each Homeland Security region to detain 75 people per day for deportation. This week ICE took 20 people into custody in the Bronx.
The Heritage Foundation’s 180-Day Playbook has become a daily Operation Chaos from the White House.

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