relationships between executive and other branches​

president and congress

• The relationship and struggle between the two branches determines the shape of US domestic and foreign policy​

• The Constitution explicitly divides power between branches and sets up various checks and balances which we have already discussed​

• If a president and Congress can work together, much more policy will be passed. If they can’t work together, the system risks breaking down​.

limits on the president

Separation of powers limits the president for three reasons:​

• The president and congress receive separate mandates​

• The president has limited patronage over individual members of congress​

• Possibility of bipartisan control or divided government

separate mandates

• House elections renew a congressional mandate every two years – therefore a stronger case for mandate?​

• Senators and Congresspersons represent a constituency – respond to local views​

• They will ‘toe the party line’ but will be unwilling to go against region and face hostility and potentially lose seat

limited patronage

• President and Congress separate – they do not work alongside each other​

• President likely to choose a Cabinet that lasts a term, unlike GB where an aspiring minister may be promoted (however, Trump’s habit of firing aides – or resignations - means promotion for a Trump ally more of a possibility) Biden different, back to key people for the entire administration. Trump 2, back to the same as his first term​

• Congresspersons feel much less pressure to support their party than in the UK – there’s also little the president can do to force them – no three line whip​

• However, in 2025, Senators/Congresspersons who fail to support Trump agenda in risk losing their seat, or even a state​

divided government

• Often one chamber is controlled by the party other than the president’s​

• Conflicting agendas mean that compromise necessary if either side are to achieve policy aims​

• Most presidents have struggled through a period where their agenda is blocked – Obama especially in his second term, largely considered a ‘lame duck’ presidency – his Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) constantly under attack. Trump lost the House in 2018 which is why he hasn’t been able to stop the Impeachment process and struggled so hard to get the funding for his Wall. This dogged him until he lost.​

• Biden also struggled not just with Republicans but Democratic senators.​

• 2025 – Trump has the trifecta of presidency, Congress and Senate and has wasted no time getting his agenda across. We call this, obviously, a united government.

‘the trump shutdown’​

• We can see what happens when a president and Congress will not compromise. There were three shutdowns in Trump’s first term, and the last was the longest. A row with Democrats over funding the wall partially shut down the government, leaving some 800,000 federal employees unpaid.​

• The last shutdown lasted over four weeks – Trump refused to agree the budget needed to keep federal agencies going until funding for ‘the Wall’ was approved. President Trump refused to sign legislation to fund and reopen the government if it did not include $5.7bn (£4.5bn) for the wall.​

• He claimed he was representing the mandate he was elected on – to build the Wall. The Democrats said the wall was an "immorality" and a waste of taxpayers' money.​

• In the end, Trump declared immigration coming over the border was a ‘national emergency’ and got funding from the Pentagon’s budget. Mr Trump has the right to undertake such a construction project in times of war and national emergency, usually allocating funds from the department of defence.

trump second term

• Trump’s second term policy is to constantly issue executive orders that require government agencies, unions or individuals to seek a ruling from the courts. ​

• Several injunctions have already been issued but this takes time and Trump is issuing executive orders faster than courts can hear them. It’s a slow process that Trump is taking advantage of.​

• More worryingly, some – including VP Vance – have stated that a ‘bad’ court decision should be ignored.

the ‘base’

• Trump also had to ensure he kept his appeal to his ‘base’. This is the demographic that the Trump campaign targeted to claim enough electoral college votes to win the 2016 election even though he didn’t win the popular vote​​

• That base did indeed turn out – he received the second ever highest votes in an election. Alas, his base also turned up at the Capitol​

• The Wall was his most famous election pledge and one that was very popular with his base​

• This meant compromise that did not fund a barrier of some kind was so difficult for him – it was more than his natural combative personality. Ditto in condemning white supremacy​

• This base has widened in 2024 to encompass previous groups loyal to democrats such as black and Hispanic voters. Immigration, and stopping it, has become a defining issue, the public seeing Biden fail on it and believing Trump will ‘fix’ it

setting the agenda

• It is now much easier, in a media-dominated world, for the president to set the national agenda when it comes to policy. Trump also expanded this reach by using Twitter to directly announce policy and initiatives even his team haven’t heard or agreed to. Trump only gave interviews to ‘friendly’ media. Any dissent was labelled ‘fake news’. The use of social media is still a relatively new one in politics. What Trump did with Twitter had never been done. Has led to questions about free speech in the USA​​

• President head of state and head of government​

• Growth of EXOP also significant to forwarding agenda​

• President has become ‘Chief Legislator’ especially as mass media has made the president the spokesman for policy as mentioned in the first point

• However, Congress often has its own legislative priorities​

• A strong Speaker of Congress can oppose the president’s agenda and promote another​

• Nancy Pelosi reframed the debate on immigration away from a physical barrier to policies on asylum and assisting countries with issues that cause so many people to wish to leave them and come to the US​

• The Speaker also organises and mobilise oversight into executive activities. The obvious result of this is the Impeachment investigation following the Ukraine scandal. The fact that Democrats controlled the House allowed this to happen, as did the second vote to impeach after the assault on the Capitol.​

• Situation different for Biden. He was investigated over storage of classified documents and called a ‘forgetful old man’ in a report. Republicans controlled House thought Speakers have had a rough time of it. Kevin McCarthy deposed, trouble electing a replacement. Mick Johnston has come out as a Trump loyalist as have most of the Republican Senate​

power to amend​

• president may often set the national agenda and advance policy but it is Congress that the power to amend policy​

• Congress can amend and crucially add elements to legislation that the president may not agree with. The president cannot do this​

• Obamacare was changed from what Obama proposed and he had to accept these compromises to get the legislation passed (see Pearson p. 380 for more detail). Obama himself presided over a shutdown in 2013 over a contested budget

imperial presidency

• 1st term: Trump declared state of national emergency to build his wall (meant he could take money from defence budget to pay for it)​

  • did this display Trump as a more ‘imperial’ president?​

• ​"an imperial presidency is one in which the president stretches the Constitution in the exercise of constitutional roles, such as chief executive and commander in chief, and may ignore the wishes of Congress.” (Pearson)

• illusion given of being imperial president in first term + even more so in second term​

• tries to clamp down on any dissent​

• use of executive orders is v imperial. attempts to circumvent Congress + Judiciary​​

• anyone who he felt disagreed w/ him or his views was fired from his team. In Trump 2, only those loyal are even put forward for position​

• As early kings often did, Trump expects deference and he attacked his enemies as enemies of the state and was quick to attack other countries, ignoring the normal conventions of diplomacy. In 2016, Former FBI chief Comey said Trump demanded personal loyalty from him. He refused. Loyalty now a key part of advancement in Trump’s second term​​

foreign policy: trump overseas

• imperial tone filtered into foreign policy too​

  • liked to be seen as the leader abroad + liked it best when meeting fellow authoritarian minded leaders.​

  • use of tariffs is also an aspect of this imperial approach. ​

  • also related to his past as a businessman. Foreign relations as business dealings. He always talked of treaties and discussions as ‘a great deal’; for example, dubbing his and Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s plan for solving the Israel Palestine issue, 28th January 2020, as ‘the deal of the century’ This is also in his idea to take over Gaza and rebuilt it as if Gaza is a derelict building lot

allies: trump overseas

• Unlike many previous presidents, Trump was naturally distrustful of existing alliances that had been in place since WW2​

• He constantly criticised and undermined NATO and criticised the EU. He had a fractious relationship with Macron and the EU​

• He is pro-Brexit as it undermined European power​​

• Biden has spent much of his early term trying to mend fences with Europe and now Trump is smashing them all again. Wants to buy Greenland and to take over Canada

biden

• keen to distance himself not just from Trump’s policies but from his leadership style.​

• Biden strived to work with Congress. Saw himself as an old-fashioned negotiator, able to unite. This had limited success, Biden finding hyper-partisanship still dominant. ​

• Greater stability in the Cabinet. Return of experienced politicians in key jobs over business people, many from previous Obama administration​

• Of course, all of this is now moot

foreign policy: biden overseas

• Biden was keen to reassert the pre-Trump alliances.​

• More cordial relations with EU and NATO once more. Key role in crisis in Ukraine – but would not commit troops ​​

• More engaged in climate change issues – COP 26​

• Did Biden’s focus on China as America’s big rival mean he took his eye off Putin?​

• Afghanistan a fiasco. AUKUS – a surprise to many allies, soured relations with Macron and France​

• Support for Israel over Gaza. Led to pushback. ​

impeachment​

• One thing that shows that it is very hard for a president to be imperial is the impeachment process​

• Despite railing against it since the start, Trump wasn’t able to make it go away​

• Trump will always be one of the small group of presidents who have been impeached, even though Senate decided there were not enough grounds to convict​

  • He is also the ONLY one ever to be impeached twice! ​

the basics of the impeachment

• proceedings started bc officials were concerned about relations with Ukraine​

• Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Guiliani, was in the country trying to convince prosecutors to investigate Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden, potential Democratic front runner for the presidency. Hunter was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company

the accusation

• alleged Trump held back on giving aid to Ukraine + to meeting w/ new president Zelensky until investigation into Hunter Biden had been authorised​

• ​alleged did this for own political benefit, to discredit Biden (2020 presidential rival)​

• ​alleged Guiliani was working to Trump’s persona agenda, separate from diplomats + answerable only to Trump

whistleblowers

• several whistleblowers approached Congress with concerns regarding Trump’s actions, and those working for him​

• Some had heard, or heard of, Trump talking to the Ukrainian president which suggested to them that aid was conditional on investigating Biden​

• Trump refused to release the recording of the conversation, releasing a partial transcript instead

the second impeachment

• impeached again, for inciting the mob that stormed Capitol building on January 6th, 2020. He urged supporters to take back control and that the election result was wrong and that he had won.​

• House drafted articles of impeachment claiming he incited insurrection against the country.​​

• Investigations into this were stopped when Trump was elected once more, though he is a convicted felon for sexual assault

biden impeachment

• faced investigation as Republican House launched oversight investigations.​

• ​investigated Hunter Biden + that Biden family benefitted from deals Hunter made using the Biden name. They also investigated Biden having classified files at house in Delaware

• On leaving office Biden proactively pardoned all his family – but not himself

president and the supreme court

• President’s only formal power over SC is to nominate when there was a vacancy​

• However, this can be very important. Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment was crucial for Trump’s popularity to his base and to Republicans​

• When RBG died, Trump got another right winger in with ACB which has skewed the balance of the SC towards the right massively​

• This led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and may lead to further stripping back of rights in Trump 2

examples of president and SC: Trump​​

• The president is supposed to execute SC decisions ​

• In Trump 1, when a District Court judge stopped Trump’s immigration ban, Trump went on the attack, calling Judge Robard a ‘so-called judge’​

• Trump instructed the US public to blame the judge if anything went wrong (similar to him blaming the Democrats for the shutdown during the Wall standoff). Trump 2, suggestion that Trump will defy any judges that say his actions unconstitutional

do they have the upper hand to SC?

• Presidents strongly limited by the SC​

• Presidents typically lose SC cases in every year of their presidency ​

• ​SC can also use its power of judicial review to overturn the actions of the president or his policies​

• challenge to Biden was previous 3 SC judges appointed all being conservatives

biden SC pick

• With SC Justice Stephen Breyer retiring, Biden finally had a chance to add a judge to help address the shift to the right.​

• He said he would appoint a black woman to the position and true to his word he appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Harvard graduate and a Federal Judge from 2013. ​

• However, the court is still more stacked towards conservative judges. ​