For nine months, congressional Republicans have largely stood idly by as President Donald Trump has gone to great lengths to try to expand the power of the presidency, demolish norms and disregard laws.
But increasingly, the implications of those power grabs are starting to come into focus – and specifically, what they might mean when the shoe is on the other foot the next time Democrats are in charge.
And Republicans seem to be starting to reckon with that.
Perhaps most striking was a scene Wednesday at the Supreme Court, during oral arguments in a challenge to Trump’s worldwide tariffs.
The day prior, a CNBC host had asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent whether he worried about a Democratic president abusing the power Trump was claiming. Host Joe Kernen posited that this future president could levy large tariffs on energy based solely on a declaration that there was a climate change emergency. Bessent demurred, saying, “I would question whether there’s a climate emergency.”
But that’s not really the point. The point is that the Trump administration has more or less argued that it wouldn’t matter if there was actually a climate emergency; it says all that really matters is that a president would say there’s one, and that th
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