It’s pretty clear, and not especially surprising, that the second Trump administration has immediately launched a number of initiatives aimed at testing the outer limits of presidential power. This is a chief executive, lest we forget, who once said of the Constitution, “I have an Article II where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” And you can’t really blame him since the U.S. Supreme Court he did so much to shape went pretty far down the road of freeing him from accountability for his deeds.

But as we wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on his attempted “funding freeze” and other audacious exercises in imperial overreach, we’re hearing an unusual justification for Trump’s apparent belief that he can do whatever he pleases: The people have demanded it! It’s right there in the very beginning of the Office of Management and Budget memo imposing the funding freeze:

The American people elected Donald J. Trump to be President of the United States and gave him a mandate to increase the impact of every federal taxpayer dollar. In Fiscal Year 2024, of the nearly $10 trillion that the Federal Government spent, more than $3 trillion was Federal financial assistance, such as grants and loans. Career and political appointees in the Executive Branch have a duty to align Federal spending and action with the will of the American people as expressed through Presidential........

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