Most Americans think it’s “too risky” to give presidents more power, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center.
The poll, conducted Jan. 27 to Feb. 2, found that 65% of people think it would be too risky to give President Donald Trump more power to deal directly with the nation’s problems.
The poll found a higher share of Americans, 78%, think it would be too risky to give any president, Trump or anyone else who occupies the Oval Office, expanded power.
Partisan differences were evident in the poll, with 90% of Democrats saying it would be too risky for Trump to gain more power.
On the flip side, most Republicans seemingly want Trump’s power to increase. A majority of Republicans, 59%, said many of the country’s problems could be addressed more effectively if Trump didn’t need to worry so much about Congress or the courts.
Trump took office a month ago and has signed a flurry of executive orders and deployed his advisers, including Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting task force, to remake the federal government.
Trump is working with a Republican majority in Congress and has a conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
The Constitution divides the federal government into three coequal branches, with Trump in charge of the executive.
It’s supposed to be a system of checks and balances that prevents any one person or branch from gaining too much power.
But several political experts said Wednesday Trump is pushing the limits of his authority.
Todd Belt, political management program director at George Washington University, said Trump is trying to usurp power from the other branches of government.
“Absolutely he is. There’s no question about it,” Belt said.
“He’s going to push as far as he can push,” said Oklahoma State University politics professor Seth McKee.
Trump is “not trying. He’s successfully doing it,” said Casey Burgat, legislative affairs program director at GWU.
Burgat said it’s a continuation of a trend where presidents grow frustrated with the inaction or lack of aggressiveness on their agenda within Congress, so they explore every tool at their disposal to get things done through executive order and other unilateral actions.
“Trump is not an exception to that,” Burgat said. “And if anything, he’s going further and harder than any of his predecessors, including himself in his first term.”
McKee said the Supreme Court “gift wrapped” a stronger presidency with its decision last summer giving presidents presumptive immunity for official acts.
Belt said Trump feels emboldened by the presidential immunity decision. He also said Trump has also surrounded himself with “more yes people” this time.
And Belt said the president believes voters sent him to Washington to purge the government of what they see as “a bunch of hostile Democrats” in the bureaucracy.
An example of Trump overstepping his authority is when he fired nearly 20 independent inspectors general at government agencies without giving proper notice to Congress, Belt said. Or when he dismissed the head of an independent government ethics watchdog agency without reportedly providing any legal justification for the removal.
Burgat said there are also questions about whether Trump is overreaching with how he’s using DOGE to trim government and how he moved to freeze federal aid.
The has been no appetite from Republicans in Congress to apply their authoritative and fundamental check on presidential actions, notably with Congress’ power of the purse, Burgat said. Republicans in Congress don’t want to draw Trump’s ire, even if they disagree with something the president does, he said.
“They don’t want to be a skunk at the garden party, especially if it’s not going to change anything,” Burgat said.
McKee said congressional Republicans are on “bended knee” for Trump, who has a vise grip on the party. That might change in the 2026 midterm elections, if Republicans lose control of the House.
The sitting president’s party has lost House seats in each midterm going back to 2006. Republicans lost 40 House seats during the 2018 midterm, in Trump’s first stint in the White House.
“So, then it will be a constitutional crisis, because Democrats will immediately call him out on usurping power in violation of the Constitution,” McKee said.
But McKee said voters probably don’t care about Trump’s efforts to cut the bureaucracy unless they start seeing government functions decline in a way affecting their lives.
Belt said Trump’s efforts to purge the bureaucracy might backfire on Republicans and everyone else. These moves open up the ability of subsequent presidents of either party to do the same.
“The pendulum swings back and forth,” he said.
But Belt said the American public is better served by stability within the ranks of government civil servants.
“For the federal bureaucracy to be effective, you want people who have institutional knowledge, policy knowledge, process knowledge, and an ability to be able to work these things effectively,” Belt said. “And if you sweep everybody out every four years, you lose that.”
The courts, not Congress, are most likely to provide a check on the president’s power, Belt said. But the Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority.
“You never really know where the justices are going to go on this,” he said. “It’s been true that they have been very supportive of Trump’s claims to power, especially with Trump v. U.S., but at the same time, the Supreme Court can be subject to public opinion and the perception of looking partisan.
“And the question is, are there two votes of the six Republicans who are willing to break off and try to reinforce a separation of powers argument. And if they do that, they’re going to have to draw some lines. It’s probably not going to be a real easy decision.”
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