UNITED States President Donald Trump is pushing for more control over everything the federal government and its agencies do, and a string of firings will test how far he might be able to take his quest.
Over three days this week, the Republican president moved to terminate Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention director Susan Monarez and railroad regulator Robert Primus.
The actions underscored Trump‘s desire for influence in sectors normally seen as independent from overt political control and could have major implications for financial markets, health policy and public trust in institutions.
The firings could undermine confidence in agencies that are meant to inform the private sector and provide expertise for the president while operating above any one party’s politics, according to experts in presidential authority.
If allowed to stand, the independence of other institutions may also be at risk.
“It is something that is novel, in a bad way, and represents a significant power grab by the president,” said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, an advocacy group.
“The president has a lot of power, but there are limits.
“You have a president today that does not recognise any of those limits.”
White House officials said the president was acting within his legal authority to deliver on the agenda he was elected to enact.
The administration has said Monarez and Primus were dismissed because they did not align with Trump‘s agenda, and it wanted to focus the CDC on its core mission.
Monarez, sworn into her job less than a month ago, had resisted changes to vaccine policy that she believed contradicted scientific evidence, a close associate said.
Primus’ social media included posts that could be read as critical of Trump administration policies unrelated to railways.
The administration has accused Cook of mortgage fraud, which she denies.
But Trump made clear another motivation for her removal, telling a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday that he would soon have a majority of loyalists on the Fed’s board of governors, which helps set the interest rates that Trump wants lowered.
Cook has sued Trump and the Fed, saying an unsubstantiated claim of mortgage fraud does not provide legal authority for her removal. Monarez had refused to resign. Primus said his termination was legally invalid.
Most US presidents steer clear of commenting about the Federal Reserve, let alone influencing monetary policy or knocking members off the board of governors.
“If this … removal at the Federal Reserve is allowed to stand, then all of the rest of the dominoes are going to fall,” said Jane Manners, associate professor at the Fordham School of Law and an expert on presidential powers.
During his seven months in office, Trump has been aggressive in his effort to dominate not only the federal government but the public life of the nation.
On Tuesday, he joined angry customers in publicly appealing for the chain restaurant Cracker Barrel to drop a planned logo redesign, which it did later that day.
He bypassed longtime Republican orthodoxy in negotiating deals for the government to take a 10 per cent stake in the computer chip maker Intel and capture some revenue from its rival Nvidia’s sales.
He is seeking new authority over private universities, using their public funding as leverage.
“The Trump administration is using every lever of power granted to the executive branch by the Constitution and Congress to implement the America First agenda that the president campaigned on,” said White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers.
“President Trump is keeping his promise to prioritise the interests of the American people over foreign countries, ivory tower institutions, unelected bureaucrats and out-of-touch wokesters.”
Musing this week about the possibility of deploying troops to patrol Democratic-controlled Chicago, Trump claimed he had “the right to do anything I want to do”.
Unlike US presidents who preceded him, from Abraham Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the current commander-in-chief has so far faced little opposition from the co-equal branches of Congress and the Supreme Court.
* The writers are from Reuters
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