Introduction
Introduction Statistics Contact Development Disclaimer Help
.-') _ .-') _
( OO ) ) ( OO ) )
.-----. ,--./ ,--,' ,--./ ,--,'
' .--./ | \ | |\ | \ | |\
| |('-. | \| | )| \| | )
/_) |OO )| . |/ | . |/
|| |`-'| | |\ | | |\ |
(_' '--'\ | | \ | | | \ |
`-----' `--' `--' `--' `--'
lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Trump aims high in bid to impose ultimate power
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated:
12:01 AM EDT, Wed August 27, 2025
Source: CNN
In the gospel according to Donald Trump — his book “The Art of the
Deal” — the future president laid out his business and life
philosophy.
“I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and
pushing to get what I’m after,” Trump wrote. “Sometimes I settle
for less than I sought, but in most cases I still end up with what I
want.”
Once, Trump used this technique to haggle with contractors, to
intimidate rival real estate sharks and in endless lawsuits to pursue
his business interests.
Twenty-eight years later, he hasn’t changed. His pushing and pushing
and pushing just takes place on a grander and more consequential stage.
How Trump beat a presidential curse
The president’s relentless attempts to create leverage and wield
decisive and uninhibited power on multiple fronts have dominated a
summer in which he’s been more unrestrained than ever.
August has often been a cruel month for presidents. In 2014, in an odd
echo of today, fighting raged in Gaza and Ukraine, intruding on
President Barack Obama’s vacation and raising questions about his
leadership. Chroniclers of the Biden years date the start of the
eclipse of the 46th president’s administration to August 26, 2021,
when a suicide bomber killed 13 Americans at Kabul International
Airport.
Trump motored through this August determined to beat the curse, always
testing the boundaries of what is appropriate legal or constitutional
conduct in a president.
His pushing culminated this week with threats to and send them to
Chicago — even when Democratic leaders of the city and the state of
Illinois .
Emergency conditions prescribed by the US Code that include rebellions,
which might make this a clear legal act, do not exist in the city —
despite Trump’s claims Tuesday that it’s in “big trouble” and
is a “disaster” because of crime.
But that’s not stopping the president, who is also threatening to
send federal forces to other cities controlled by Democrats.
“I (have) the right to do anything that I want to do. I’m the
president of the United States. If I think our country’s in danger
— and it is in danger in these cities — I can do it,” Trump said
during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday.
This is consistent with the president’s long-held view that there are
few constraints on a president and that his authority is almost
absolute.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a possible 2028 presidential candidate,
however, seemed on solid ground when he wrote on X. “No, Donald, you
can’t do whatever you want.”
Time will tell.
Trump’s bid to fire Fed member is one of his biggest power plays yet
Trump is pushing his authority on another front, announcing this week
he had . The Department of Justice is investigating Cook over alleged
mortgage transgressions. She has denied wrongdoing and plans to fight
her dismissal in the courts.
It’s not clear whether Trump has the power to fire Cook. But he’s
trying it anyway — aiming high and seeing if he can get what he
wants.
“Under the law the president clearly does have the legal authority to
fire a member of the Federal Reserve for cause. I think what is a
closer question though is whether, the president has at this point what
amounts to cause,” Tom Dupree, a former deputy assistant attorney
general told CNN.
Trump rarely hides his motives. He said Tuesday that if he could
dispense with Cook, he was more likely to get a favorable decision on
one of his obsessions — .
“We’ll have a majority very shortly, so that’ll be great,”
Trump said. “Once we have a majority, housing is going to swing and
it’s going to be great. People are paying too high an interest
rate.”
Trump shrugged his shoulders on Tuesday when asked by a reporter about
the possibility that Cook could prevail in court. “You always have
legal fights. Look, I had a legal fight that went on for years with
crooked people, with very horrible people,” the president said.
Even if Cook’s fate remains in limbo because of the court fight, the
president can achieve some of his goals. By attacking one Fed board
member, he’s imposing indirect pressure on his premier target, . And
he can make life unpleasant for Cook, whom he regards as an adversary
who has crossed him.
How Trump exploits legal delays to chase political goals
Trump is no stranger to using the time it takes for cases to work
through the courts to advance his political goals.
For example, by the time dismissed bureaucrats working for USAID were
able to , Trump had eviscerated their agency.
And as he fought four criminal indictments as a presidential candidate,
he filed countless and often frivolous procedural motions to slow court
action and run out the accountability clock over his attempt to steal
the 2020 election.
Now that he’s back in power, his administration is using the legal
system to settle scores.
Several of Trump’s political enemies have found themselves under
investigation over mortgage filings, including and , who won a civil
fraud judgment against Trump, his adult sons and the Trump
organization. Neither has been charged, and both deny wrongdoing.
Last week, FBI agents arrived at the home of , a first-term Trump
national security adviser who frequently criticizes the president on
television. A search warrant would have been approved by a judge on the
grounds that there was probable cause that a crime had been committed.
But it did seem rather a coincidence that yet another Trump adversary
was under investigation.
“What the president is trying to do here is very systemic and
systematic,” Schiff told NBC’s “Meet the Press” regarding the
search of Bolton’s home. “Anyone who stands up to the president,
anyone who criticizes the president, anyone who says anything adverse
to the president’s interests, gets the full weight of the federal
government brought down on them.”
But who is to stop Trump?
The courts have curtailed some of his policies, although the increasing
ranks of judges appointed by the president — and a conservative
Supreme Court majority that sometimes — are helping his bid to expand
presidential power. And the high court fueled Trump’s vision of
impunity by ruling in a case related to one of his criminal indictments
that for official acts.
Congress ought to be another brake. But Republican majorities in the
House and Senate are supine to Trump, willingly ceding power to the
executive. And the ultimate constitutional curb on his behavior —
impeachment — was carried out twice by Democratic House majorities
but was thwarted when Republicans in the Senate refused to convict him
of high crimes and misdemeanors.
And forget anyone in Trump’s handpicked second-term team of
uber-loyalists imposing restraint. In a more-than-three-hour Cabinet
meeting Tuesday, his subordinates took turns to layer extravagant
praise on the president.
Trump’s sense of his own omnipotence, impunity, vengeance and
ambition grows by the day.
“Any person who defies him is viewed not as an intellectual adversary
but as a vicious opponent,” Ty Cobb, who served for a time as a White
House lawyer in Trump’s first term, told CNN’s Erin Burnett.
“Anything that he can do to wreak vengeance, obviously, makes him
very happy, just like expanding his power, makes him very happy.”
Cobb added, “I think this is something that Americans need to look at
seriously because this cannot be what people in the country voted for
in terms of honor, virtue and the rule of law.”
But nothing will stop Trump aiming very high — and pushing and
pushing and pushing.
<- back to index
You are viewing proxied material from codevoid.de. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.