Skip to content

What Trump's Doing

2025-02-07 · letter vlog · Hank · 6:03 · watch on YouTube

Topic: US politics & society · mode: News analysis · tags: timely hook

Hank argues that the president's unilateral dismantling of USAID is illegal because Congress holds the power of the purse, that the real issue is whether the Constitution and the separation of powers still matter, and that Americans should refuse to believe Trump or Musk are more powerful than the Constitution.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Not about USAID: Congress created and funds it, holds the power of the purse, and the president dissolving it is illegal

  • ★★ Hank says USAID does lots of amazing work and is a very cheap way to keep the world more stable, with more diseases controlled and fewer people suffering. — 00:00:00 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says the shutdown of USAID is not the core issue: the core issue is the extent to which the Constitution matters anymore. — 00:00:11 · United States
  • ★★ Hank says a narrow congressional majority seems to have happily given up its power, but Congress is not allowed to give its power to the president, since separation of powers is the nation's founding idea. — 00:00:18 · United States Congress
  • ★★ Hank says USAID was created by a law passed by Congress and is funded by laws passed by Congress. — 00:00:36 · United States Congress, United States
  • ★★ Hank says Congress has the power of the purse: it decides how almost all money in America is spent, not the president. — 00:00:42 · United States Congress, United States
  • ★★★ Hank says the president unilaterally dissolving USAID is illegal. — 00:00:54 · United States
  • ★★ Hank says the legal route would have been to work with Congress to pass a law dissolving USAID, which the president did not do. — 00:00:59 · United States Congress, United States
  • ★★ Hank says this violates neither an ordinary law nor an amendment but Article 1 of the Constitution itself: Congress passes laws to determine how money is spent. — 00:01:05 · United States Congress
  • ★★ Hank says a president who can dismantle the work of Congress refutes the founding document, creates a logistical nightmare and calls into question why Congress exists at all. — 00:01:19 · United States Congress
  • ★★ Hank says a country cannot run if everything is burned down every four years, but Trump, Elon Musk or whoever seem to want to test the country's limits, and are doing so. — 00:01:32 · Donald Trump
  • ★ Hank does not know whether USAID is a good first target for this, since it does not immediately affect many Americans and so has few defenders at home. (unsure) — 00:01:46 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says the question is whether the president suddenly has a bunch of unconstitutional powers, and argues that he obviously does not. — 00:01:57

00:02:05 — The White House's 'executive order into law' release, Schoolhouse Rock civics, and Ezra Klein's line that Trump acts like a king because he is too weak to govern

  • ★★ Hank says a recent White House press release referred to Donald Trump signing an executive order into law. — 00:02:05 · Donald Trump
  • ★★ Hank says that is not how laws get made and that forgetting it will stop the country working; Schoolhouse Rock exists so that when people try another way and the courts tell them they are wrong, everyone agrees with the courts. — 00:02:08
  • ★ Hank recommends Ezra Klein's recent essay on Trump's first weeks back in office, also a good YouTube video, and links it in the description. — 00:02:27 · Donald Trump

  • ★★★ Ezra Klein (quoted): Hank cites the line from Ezra Klein's essay he has been thinking about all week: Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president. — 00:02:34 · Donald Trump

    “Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president”

  • ★★ Hank says the essay shows Trump is legislatively weak: the narrowest House majority since there have been 50 states, a narrow margin in Congress, and the highest disapproval of any incoming president since polling began. — 00:02:42 · United States Congress, Donald Trump

  • ★★ Hank says perhaps, instead of creating durable change, Trump is governing largely through executive orders and other untested, probably illegal, unilateral actions. (hedged) — 00:02:55 · Donald Trump

00:03:09 — Three ways to see Trump's unilateral actions, and the two that look most like reality

  • ★★ Hank voices the first, Trump-sympathetic view: the US is so corrupt and broken that the Constitution must be set aside for a while, letting the world's richest man into the Treasury to stop payments at his whim. (satire) — 00:03:09 · Donald Trump, United States
  • ★★ Continuing that view, Hank voices removing security professionals for obeying the law and letting the president take the power of the purse from Congress, because he alone can fix this. (satire) — 00:03:25 · United States Congress, Donald Trump
  • ★★ Hank's second reading: perhaps a flood-the-zone tactic, keeping everyone distracted and trying everything fast to occupy the press, courts and public and see what sticks. (hedged) — 00:03:43 · Donald Trump
  • ★★ Hank's third reading: perhaps Trump wants change but knows legislation with narrow House and Senate majorities would likely fail, and he hates the idea of failing. (hedged) — 00:03:54 · Donald Trump
  • ★★ Hank says the second and third readings look more like the reality at the moment. — 00:04:06
  • ★★ Hank says lots of Trump's executive orders have already been nothing but brief news stories before being blocked as obviously unconstitutional. — 00:04:09 · Donald Trump
  • ★★★ Hank says there are two ways to see this: either ignoring the Constitution is fine when your side does it, or it is the unacceptable action of people too weak, politically or in character, to govern. — 00:04:16

00:04:29 — Do not believe they are more powerful than the Constitution; the law will stand; lawsuits against shutting down USAID; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank says the big way to stop this is simply not to believe them when they say they are more powerful than the Constitution. — 00:04:29
  • ★★★ Hank says the Constitution is more powerful than Elon Musk or Donald Trump not just through legacy or law but because it is a good document that we collectively believe in. — 00:04:36 · Donald Trump
  • ★★ Hank says separation of powers is a very good idea, created by people who had lived under a king and did not want to anymore, and that hard work produced America. — 00:04:50 · United States
  • ★★ Hank says the times the US violated those principles are real and shameful, and we do not want to live through or be part of one. — 00:05:10 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank predicts that the law will stand. — 00:05:21
  • ★★ Hank hopes Americans will say not merely that courts blocked Trump, but that his action was unconstitutional, and that they like no president as much as they like America. (hedged) — 00:05:21 · United States, Donald Trump
  • ★★ Hank says multiple lawsuits have already been filed outlining why shutting down USAID is illegal. — 00:05:40 · United States
  • ★★ Hank says Trump fans may call the lawsuits the deep state fighting back, but they are people saying laws exist not only to restrict but to uphold the structures that have upheld the nation for 250 years. — 00:05:45 · Donald Trump

In the description and comments

  • ★ The description links news coverage of lawsuits seeking to halt the dismantling of USAID, plus Ezra Klein's video essay. — video description · United States

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Constitution of the United States · democratic backsliding · Donald Trump · separation of powers · United States Agency for International Development · United States Congress

Also: People: Elon Musk · Ezra Klein

Works: Ezra Klein's essay on Trump's first weeks back in office · Schoolhouse Rock!

Organizations: United States Department of the Treasury · United States House of Representatives · United States Senate · White House

Concepts: deep state · executive order · flooding the zone · power of the purse · rule of law

Places: United States

Also centred on separation of powers: The End of The Penny (and of Congress??)

Also centred on United States Agency for International Development: Our $80,000,000 Bet · We Will Eradicate Measles · Chatting with ... a U.S. Senator?

← Previous: Thanks, Shmed · Next → What's at Stake