Hamilton Would Not Have Stood for Trump’s New Constitutional Theory

Earlier this week, Donald Trump made two sweeping claims about his executive power under the Constitution. “When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total,” he declared on Monday evening, asserting that the president, rather than state governors, has the power to decide when to end social distancing. And then two days later, speaking from the Rose Garden, the president threatened, “The Senate should either fulfill its duty and vote on my nominees or it should formally adjourn so that I can make recess appointments. If the House will not agree to that adjournment, I will exercise my constitutional authority to adjourn both chambers.”

Neither of the president’s claims about the scope of his powers under the Constitution was, to put it mildly, well received. Scholars and politicians from across the political spectrum, including and , indicated that they disagreed with the president. But perhaps the most pointed criticism of these ideas comes from