Trump's Trials - Trump plans to use presidential power to control spending

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

Trump's Trials is now Trump's Terms. Each episode, host Scott Detrow curates NPR coverage of the incoming Trump administration.President-elect Trump wants to roll back spending that Congress has already approved. But a 1974 law may stand in his way. NPR's Franco Ordoñez reports.Support NPR and hear every episode sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Scott Detro and you're listening to Trump's Terms from NPR. We will have really great strong people. Donald Trump is unstoppable. Make America healthy again. The future is going to be amazing. Each episode we bring you NPR's latest coverage of the incoming Trump administration and the people who will run it. Cabinet secretaries, political advisors, military leaders, NPR is following

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And I'm Leila Faldon. And thank you. I'm Leila Faldon. President-elect Trump is promising to slash what he says is significant waste in the American government. Trump announced on Friday his pick for someone to help do that. It's Russ Vote. He's an architect of Project 2025, and he's set to once again lead the White House budget office as he did in Trump's first term.

To make his budget plan a reality, vote has been working on ways to expand presidential powers. Here's NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordonez. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. It was back in the spring in May at a rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where Donald Trump first brought up his plans for how he wants to slash spending. To further crack down on rampant waste in the federal government, we're going to bring back presidential impoundment authority, which nobody knows what it is, but it allows the president to go out and cut things and save a fortune for our country, things that make no sense.

A quick explanation. Congress has the power of the purse. Impoundment is when the president holds back money that Congress has approved for a specific purpose. Trump and his allies, like Russ Voht, argue a president has the right or should have the right to not spend those funds. That's raising alarm bells across Washington that Trump may be trying to overstep his power. I am cautiously optimistic, but I'm also worried. Eloise Pasikoff is a Georgetown law professor who has written about this. She points to a law called the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which requires that a president spend

money as Congress directs. The law was passed after tough battles with the Nixon administration. I'm cautiously optimistic because I think that this is the way the system is supposed to work. You know, I believe in the rule of law. I believe in government institutions doing, you know, what they're set up to do. I'm also worried because these are complicated times. Several of Trump's top aides have taken aim at the law, arguing it's unconstitutional. They think this Supreme Court will agree. That includes Elon Musk, the tech billionaire, and former GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy. They say bypassing the law could

help them in their work on the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOJ for short. No one has argued more forcefully for wielding impoundment authority than Russ Vogt, who Trump announced would be returning to his role as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vogt told me last year when discussing the goals of Project 2025 that impoundment could be useful. And here he is talking about it on Fox Business. I believe that the loss of impoundment authority, which 200 years of presence enjoyed, was the original sin in eliminating the ability from a branch on branch to control spending.

And we're going to need to bring that back. Trump tried it once in his first term. He impounded for an aid for Ukraine, but Congress objected. It was part of his first impeachment. This time, the debate is almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court, says Josh Blackman, a law professor at South Texas College of Law. So what Trump would basically have to argue is that his powers, his Article II powers override, or Trump, if you will, the limitations put on by the statute. And Black men who has filed briefs with the Supreme Court supporting Trump says the court

has acted favorably toward Trump in terms of executive power. We've seen this in the Trump immunity case. We've seen this in the president's power to remove officials. The court takes a very robust view of presidential power. And maybe the most relevant data point is that Chief Justice John Roberts worked in the Reagan White House. And I think he'd be very sympathetic to the arguments that were so influential in his earlier career. Trump's team suggests they are more than willing to test that out.

Franco Ordoñez, NPR News. And before we wrap up, a thank you to our NPR Plus supporters who hear each show without sponsored messages and of course who help protect independent journalism. If you are not a supporter yet, you can visit plus.npr.org to find out how you can get a ton of podcast perks across dozens of NPR shows, like bonus episodes, exclusive merchandise, and more. Again, that's plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detro.

Thanks for listening to Trump's Terms from NPR. It's almost Thanksgiving, and if you're hosting this year, how well do you know how to cook the main event? A turkey, in the grand scheme of things, not actually that hard. There's just a couple little things you have to keep in mind. It requires a little bit of planning ahead. On a new episode of Life Kit, we talk turkey. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Thanksgiving was a national holiday created in the middle of the Civil War to unify a country that was split in two. Learn about the origins of Thanksgiving and how the unity and division that we see at our Thanksgiving tables was there from the very beginning.

Listen to the Throughline podcast from NPR.