President Trump’s toppling of the U.S. Agency for International Development this week offered the public its clearest view yet of the chaotic four years to come. Trump’s strategy of dismantling USAID amid a flurry of executive orders is almost certainly an illegal exercise of powers reserved for Congress.

That doesn’t mean it won’t work.

Trump’s first two weeks in office have been an unparalleled attack on the separation of executive and legislative power. Not only has Trump falsely claimed the power to “freeze” spending already appropriated by Congress — effectively a line item veto on steroids — his closure of USAID is a direct attack on congressional authority. Even so, good luck finding a single Capitol Hill Republican willing to defend Congress's equal status in this governing partnership.

Trump’s latest threat, to shutter the Department of Education, is written in the language of a president convinced he stands above the........

© The Hill