25 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleSarah SmithNorth America editor, in South Dakota
BBCPresident Donald Trump seems to relish creating conspicuous displays of his personal power.
He surrounds himself with cabinet members and officials who publicly praise him. He attacks world leaders who have fallen from his favour. And he pressures some of the biggest US corporations to do his bidding.
Approaching the halfway point of his second term in the White House, Trump recently told an interviewer “there are no limits” to his power.
It’s a sentiment that seems the antithesis of the so-called American experiment, which began 250 years ago when the country declared its independence from British monarchical rule.
What would those revolutionaries make of the current head of state? Not much, his critics say.
Millions have marched in anti-Trump protests around the US and the world under the banners of “No Kings”, “Democracy Not Monarchy” and “We have a Constitution, Not a King”.
They say Trump is pushing his power further than previous presidents have dared to try.
He did not, for example, get congressional authorisation before launching a war in Iran. And he kept most lawmakers in the dark about the military operation in Venezuela to seize President Nicolás Maduro.
He also used emergency powers to bypass the need for legislation before imposing trade tariffs around the world – a move the Supreme Court later ruled to be unconstitutional.
By using the US Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute his perceived adversaries, including former FBI Director James Comey, Trump is accused of ripping up the traditional separation between the White House and federal prosecutors that has existed since President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal.
“I don’t feel like a king,” Trump said recently when asked about those ‘No kings’ protests. “I have to go through hell to get things approved.”
Trump was, of course, elected having promised to enact sweeping and fundamental change to almost all areas of American policy and government. From immigration to trade to relations with America’s historic allies – many voters who backed Trump in 2024 over former President Joe Biden undoubtedly expected radical change.
Four in five Republicans approve of the job Trump is doing, according to the most recent YouGov polls. However, among all US voters, his approval rating has dropped below 40%, significantly down from the start of his second term.
Trump is not the first president to try to expand his powers, according to Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. But he said he couldn’t “think of another president who has gone quite so far, who is as enamoured with power”.
But Joshua Treviño, a senior director at the conservative think tank America First Policy Institute, warns against confusing Trump’s carefully crafted image with an expansion of the powers of the office of the presidency.
“It’s easy to confuse the aesthetic with the substance with President Trump,” Treviño told me.
He cited Franklin D Roosevelt and Richard Nixon as past presidents who tried to expand executive power, saying: “I would push back pretty hard against the idea that Donald Trump is doing something qualitatively unique in American history.”
Exactly how much power a single politician should have has long been a heated debate in the US. Back in the 18th Century, the founding fathers were so worried about investing too much power in the hands of a single head of state that some wanted an executive committee to run the country instead of a president.
Others argued for more power.
“You are afraid of the one – I, of the few,” wrote John Adams, the second US president, to Thomas Jefferson, the third president, in 1787. “We agree perfectly that the many should have a full, fair and perfect Representation. You are Apprehensive of Monarchy; I, of Aristocracy. I would therefore have given more Power to the President and less to the Senate.”
At one point, the founding fathers even considered some titles that sounded distinctly regal. They discussed calling the president “His Highness”, “His Excellency” or “His Elective Majesty.” They even pondered calling him “His Mightiness”.
GettyGeorge Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin may well have debated these constitutional questions in the Middleton Tavern, a seaside pub in Annapolis, Maryland, that’s older than the country itself. The tavern boasts that they all drank there in the earliest days of the new republic.
That’s where I met Lorraine Ross, who was celebrating her own milestone – her 60th birthday. She said she wanted to enjoy America’s birthday, too, but was concerned about the country’s future.
“I’m not going to be running around saying, yay, USA, we’re free,” she told me.
She said she was particularly worried about cuts to financial assistance for families in need and children with special needs. She expressed anger at Congress for “just letting him [Trump] run amok and ignore all the laws” that have constrained presidents’ behaviours in the past.
Other Americans I spoke to at the tavern were simply looking forward to the Fourth of July festivities which the Trump administration has promised will be bigger and better than ever.
John Knox told me he did not want to get hung up on the politics around the current president.
Knox, who was visiting from Atlanta, told me that if people disagreed with Trump, the time to express that is in the midterm elections in November – not during the Fourth of July celebrations.
Halfway across the country, at a scenic lookout in Keystone, South Dakota, military planes are flying overhead and Secret Service officers are preparing for the president’s visit here on Friday. He’ll be spending the eve of the 250th anniversary celebrations visiting Mount Rushmore, where four presidents’ likenesses are carved into granite rock.
Donald Trump has leaned into memes that put him on the mountain face alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Many of his supporters welcome the idea. There’s even a bill in front of Congress demanding Trump be added to the iconic monument.
Terry Davis and Tim Burke are among a group of old friends riding their motorbikes around the American heartland from one national park to the next. They tried to get tickets to the president’s fireworks display on Friday night, but had no luck.
I ask if they can imagine Trump’s face being added to the national monument.
Terry, 72, says Trump should be front and centre, and the biggest. “I have not been this passionate about any other president in the past until he took the reins of this country.”
These bikers celebrate what they still see as Trump’s non-politician, outsider status – and they are happy for him to use his powers as president to take on the Democrats and a federal government they perceive as too intrusive.
“Long after he’s left office, 20, 30 years from now,” Tim says, “I believe the historians will say that he’s been one of the greatest presidents in the history of our nation for the things that he has done for it.”
Getty ImagesWhat the president does with his powers does not just impact the country’s current citizens – it can shape the way future presidents use their power as well.
Zelizer, the historian, said that “every chapter in the expansion of presidential power has had long-lasting consequences”.
“It creates actual precedents that future presidents can use that they didn’t have before. And it also fuels a process of normalisation where this just becomes part of what we expect presidents to do.”
The mould for a president was set in 1789, when America swore in George Washington as the country’s first.
In his inaugural address, Washington appeared chastened by the power that he was given, saying a leader “ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies”.
It is hard to imagine Trump – who has said “I’m the greatest president in history” – expressing a similar sentiment.
United StatesDonald TrumpUS politics
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