Trump’s First 100 Days: Creating an Imperial Presidency That Harms Americans

In the first 100 days of his second term, President Donald Trump is aggressively implementing a far-right, multipronged plan to create an imperial presidency. Acting far more aggressively than he did in his first term, Trump is casting aside the U.S. Constitution and federal laws, shattering long-established guardrails designed to protect the system of checks and balances, and using government power to stifle dissent. The Trump administration is seizing unprecedented power for the executive branch to implement extreme policies that hurt everyday Americans and deprive them of their fundamental rights, at a time when people’s trust in government is already near historic lows. This unconstitutional effort to effectively turn the presidency into an unaccountable autocracy has taken the United States to the brink of authoritarianism.

In October 2024, the co-authors of this report published another report entitled “Project 2025 Would Destroy the U.S. System of Checks and Balances and Create an Imperial Presidency.” This analysis of Project 2025’s far-right playbook—the 920-page Mandate for Leadership—presented a detailed road map for an unconstrained president to entrench political supremacy and force the implementation of a radical agenda. Lamentably, many of the predictions in the report have already come to pass. The Trump administration has waged a forceful and well-oiled effort with lightning speed to achieve—and even surpass—the “Second American Revolution” envisioned by the authors of Project 2025.

This report revisits the October 2024 analysis—including discussion of threats to key laws, constitutional requirements, and guardrails—and examines how Trump is consolidating control to create a strong-man presidency. It addresses how the president is asserting his primacy over Congress, the courts, the federal bureaucracy, the media, universities, and civil society, while incorporating elements of oligarchy and systemic corruption. Without more pushback against Trump’s unprecedented power grabs, the United States could ultimately resemble modern autocracies around the world, such as Hungary and Turkey, with Americans’ safety, prosperity, and fundamental rights suffering the consequences.

American democracy, always fragile and imperfect, is at a crisis point as it approaches its 250th birthday. In only three months, President Trump has upended basic tenets of our constitutional system and seized control in a manner that dwarfs that of any other U.S. president. James Madison, a key architect of the Constitution and the fourth president of the United States, warned in Federalist No. 47, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” Trump’s coordinated attempts to amass tyrant-like power rely on several reckless constitutional theories and other mechanisms.

The Article II theory of presidential power

Trump’s expansive vision of the presidency is anchored in the misguided theory that Article II of the Constitution gives presidents virtually unchecked authority and relegates Congress (Article I) and the judiciary (Article III) to lesser branches of the federal government. Because presidents are popularly elected by voters across the nation, under this Article II theory, they enjoy virtually unchecked constitutional authority to accomplish their policy objectives and effectuate laws, and neither Congress nor the courts can unnecessarily impede them. This theory undergirds most of the Project 2025 game plan.

Echoing infamous words from President Richard Nixon—as well as dictators around the world—Trump boldly proclaimed three weeks into his presidency, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” And Vice President JD Vance, who has repeatedly stated that presidents should ignore court orders they dislike, declared on February 9: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” In other words, because Trump is the nation’s leader, the claim is anything he does to effectuate his agenda must be lawful and cannot be unduly scrutinized or negated by the other two branches of government. In the words of Georgetown University Law Center professor Stephen Vladeck, “We’ve never seen a president so comprehensively attempt to arrogate and consolidate so much of the other branches’ power, let alone to do so in the first two months of his presidency.”

The Trump administration has made its views about Article II authority clear in multiple forums, including in federal court. For example, officials from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently argued in court that Article II and the “mandate of the electorate” bestow maximum discretion for a president to interpret and implement the law, especially in areas related to national security, and that the courts must yield to that mandate. In summary fashion, these senior attorneys invoked prior Supreme Court cases to claim that Trump is “the only person who alone composes a branch of government,” and courts therefore owe him “high respect.”

But these alleged Article II powers are overly broad and do not comport with history, law, or the constitutional balance of power. The Trump administration’s application of the Article II theory minimizes the fact that the founders created Congress in Article I, the first article, and vested Congress—not the president—with the authority to make laws governing the people. The Constitution subordinates presidential power to congressional power, saying in Article II that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The founders also created the judiciary in Article III, giving federal courts the power to decide disputes arising under the law or the Constitution. By limiting the authority of each branch, the founders intended to prevent power from being concentrated in any of the three branches, including the executive.

In recent weeks, federal judges have rejected the Trump administration’s views of broad Article II authority. For example, in an ongoing case involving the administration’s attempts to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) using the president’s alleged Article II powers, a federal judge held that the Trump administration overstepped its authority to “take care” to faithfully execute the laws as written. The judge rejected the argument that popularly elected presidents must have virtually unlimited latitude to carry out their policy agenda, finding instead that the Trump administration impermissibly “usurped the power of the members of Congress, who were [also] democratically elected by the people in every state in the union.”

Trump’s dangerous view of Article II authority should be rejected by commonsense judges, but it may ultimately get a sympathetic ear from extremist justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, who sometimes appear to do Trump’s political bidding. Last year, the high court issued its lamentable decision in Trump v. United States, where the conservative majority held—for the first time in U.S. history—that presidents are broadly immune from prosecution for breaking the law in the course of their official duties. One noted scholar of executive power, Jack Goldsmith, concluded that the real import of Trump v. United States is not that the majority gave the president a shield from prosecution but that “the ruling gave Trump a ‘sword’ to brandish across the executive branch—which is exactly why laws, institutions, and what remains of the constitutional order are being slashed to bits in Trump’s Washington now.”

The unitary executive theory of presidential power

In conjunction with the groundless Article II theory, Trump and his team have invoked a related radical concept to aggrandize their power: the “unitary executive theory.” This governing philosophy, which is discussed in the October 2024 report, aims to give presidents almost complete control over the federal bureaucracy. This includes control over congressionally created independent agencies as well as nonpartisan civil servants, both of which are supposed to operate in the public interest and guard against corrupted agency decisions that could be made by loyalists.

In attempting to commandeer the entire bureaucracy, Trump is concurrently diminishing Congress’ essential role to act as a counterweight to the executive branch. Until now, Congress has used its constitutional and legal authority to set up dozens of independent agencies to make expert decisions, insulated from day-to-day political pressures from a president or his team. Yet Trump has taken steps to expressly bring independent agencies under his control, including by issuing an executive order requiring such agencies to report directly to his Office of Management and Budget, firing several independent agency leaders without cause in violation of clear statutory law, and nearly eliminating entire independent agencies, such as the CFPB.

Trump’s imperial presidency incorporates elements of oligarchy and corruption of the political system

Harkening back to the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th century, Trump’s imperial presidency also incorporates elements of two other political forces: oligarchy and systemic corruption. First, in an oligarchy, a small group of powerful people, often among the wealthiest in a nation, secure a tight grip on the government in ways that can benefit their personal or financial interests. As the Center for American Progress has explained, taken to its extreme, oligarchic state capture can occur “where the intertwining of state and private power allows authoritarian leaders to consolidate resources and fabricate electoral majorities.”

Second, a corrupted political system occurs when there are incentives for elected officials to ignore the public interest while allowing self-dealing and conflicts of interest. As CAP has written, “When the interests of the politically connected are put first, it’s at the expense of people without the means to pay for lobbyists in Washington.”

For example, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who spent close to $300 million to help elect Trump and holds billions of dollars of government contracts, plays a central part in reshaping the government via his role at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE is slashing government agencies, personnel, grants, and contracts, purportedly to reduce wasteful government spending

According to The New York Times, at least 11 federal agencies that have faced DOGE cuts or interference have at least 32 continuing investigations, pending complaints, or enforcement actions into Musk-owned companies. These include the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the independent agency that Musk is suing in ongoing litigation after the board alleged that Musk-owned SpaceX engaged in unfair labor practices. The NLRB also filed a 2024 complaint accusing Musk-owned Tesla of hampering the company’s Buffalo, New York, employees from unionizing; DOGE announced in February 2025 that it would close or downsize the NLRB’s Buffalo field office.

DOGE-impacted agencies that oversee Musk-owned companies also include the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, where DOGE cuts have disproportionately fallen on employees who assess risks from self-driving vehicles—and, as such, have hampered potentially lifesaving oversight of technology used by Tesla. Moreover, DOGE helped engineer the attempted dismantling of the CFPB, which has jurisdiction over a new mobile payment system that X will soon launch with Visa. According to former CFPB Director Richard Cordray, “The fact that Musk is now engaged in payment businesses that would be regulated by the CFPB at the same time he’s trying to tear down the CFPB puts in sharp relief the conflicts of interests here and how much this disserves the general public.”

Even though Musk has substantial conflicts of interest tied to his DOGE work, Trump’s team has said that Musk is trusted to determine his own conflicts.

Another example of conflicts of interest involves Peter Thiel, a billionaire venture capitalist from the tech industry who helped Trump win the presidency and is closely linked to Musk. Several DOGE officials worked for Thiel in the recent past. As DOGE makes large-scale changes to computer systems that store sensitive IRS records, the Thiel-owned Palantir software company is seeking to build a new system interface for the IRS. At the same time that DOGE is working inside the U.S. Department of Defense to examine the propriety of defense contracts, SpaceX is partnering with Palantir to obtain a government contract to build key parts of Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome,” an air defense system designed to keep the United States safe from attack.

It is noteworthy that during the past several months, as DOGE has pursued its stated government efficiency goals, Trump summarily fired 17 inspectors general, in violation of statutory requirements, preventing those independent watchdogs from rooting out corruption or fraud at government departments.

With guardrails and accountability weakened, the conflicts of interest inherent in an oligarchy help create a two-tiered system of privilege and access: 1) a top tier for people who are hugely wealthy, are well-connected, and retain powerful lobbyists and 2) a lower tier for most everyday Americans, who are witnessing the government indiscriminately slash programs on which they depend while their cost of living increases. All of this risks diminishing Americans’ trust that the federal government can deliver results for them.

Authoritarians around the world follow a similar road map

Around the world, authoritarians have followed a familiar playbook to consolidate power and hollow out democratic systems from within. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has stacked the bureaucracy and judiciary with loyalists while rewriting electoral laws to entrench his party’s dominance. Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdoğan has used emergency powers to sideline parliament and centralize control in the presidency. And Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić has blurred the line between party and state, captured the media, and deployed patronage networks to reward allies and punish critics.

Authoritarian perpetrators erode the rule of law by attacking prosecutors, neutering public watchdogs, and shielding themselves and their allies from legal consequences. In El Salvador, for example, President Nayib Bukele dismissed independent judges and prosecutors en masse, concentrating power and undercutting judicial oversight. In backsliding democracies, political corruption becomes a feature, not a bug, used to reward loyalists and co-opt dissenters. Dissent itself is criminalized, as in Turkey, where Erdoğan has imprisoned thousands of political opponents, journalists, and academics on vague terrorism charges. At the same time, civil society is defanged and independent media is discredited or captured, as seen in India with the harassment of outlets such as The Wire. In Venezuela, authoritarian governments actively sidelined the traditional bureaucracy and accountability mechanisms through repression, the creation of parallel administrative structures, and the militarization of civil services. And in Russia, academic and political freedom has all but vanished, with universities forced to toe the regime’s line or face closure.

What remains is not a functioning democracy but an unaccountable executive cloaked in the trappings of legality.

President Trump is deploying 10 tools to become an autocratic leader. The first seven categories were discussed in CAP’s report analyzing Project 2025, while the remaining three categories address additional mechanisms the Trump administration is deploying.

Additional in-depth analysis from CAP and other experts will continue to identify other significant problems resulting from Trump’s first 100 days, including economic, health, and environmental harms.

As outlined in CAP’s report, the far-right road map detailed in Project 2025 called for the next president to take control of the DOJ, which had a roughly 50-year tradition of independence from White House political interference. CAP and other experts predicted this takeover would lead to the DOJ making politicized decisions to help the president, including targeting his perceived enemies, while hurting the public interest and system of justice.

In his first 100 days in office, Trump has indeed stripped the DOJ of its independence and bent it to his will, anointing himself as the nation’s “chief law enforcement officer” while pursuing retribution against his foes. To help implement his plans to take over the DOJ, Trump installed Pam Bondi—an extreme, far-right loyalist who supported his attempts to overturn the 2020 election—as the attorney general. In a remarkable breach of norms that traditionally prohibited presidents from directing the DOJ’s independent prosecutorial decisions, Trump issued an executive memorandum on April 9 mandating that the DOJ investigate two former officials who criticized his election lies and other matters during his first administration, despite any credible allegations that the two individuals broke any laws.

In a shocking purge, the DOJ summarily fired dozens of department attorneys who worked on Trump-related prosecutions during the administration of President Joe Biden. The White House even directly intervened and fired without explanation an assistant U.S. attorney after a far-right activist posted about him on social media. The White House also fired another longtime career prosecutor serving as an acting U.S. attorney. According to the department’s former pardon attorney, who was dismissed without explanation after refusing to support restoring the gun rights of Trump supporter and actor Mel Gibson: “It should alarm all Americans that the leadership of the Department of Justice appears to value political loyalty above the fair and responsible administration of justice.” Weeks later, the DOJ fired another attorney after he admitted in federal court that the administration erroneously deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran prison. And in yet another worrying move, the acting U.S attorney for Washington, D.C., launched probes into entities, including academic journals, based on their viewpoints, prompting concerns that the government is trying to suppress academic and scientific freedoms.

In an egregious example of how senior DOJ officials have been implementing politically based prosecutorial decisions, DOJ leaders decided to drop federal bribery-related charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) in February. In response, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, a conservative member of the Federalist Society who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, resigned, along with several other DOJ attorneys, rather than follow the command to dismiss the charges, contending that evidence showed Adams had engaged in “an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.” In April, a federal judge agreed to dismiss the case but rejected the DOJ’s request to hang legal jeopardy over Adams’ head by holding out the possibility they could refile the criminal charges against him in the future.

Officials at the DOJ have also ordered large restructurings in personnel and priorities, which appear to be risking critical national security and public safety missions that help keep communities safe. Part of these plans include gutting the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, which prosecutes corrupt officials, and steering “national security priorities away from initiatives that have been a source of irritation for President Donald Trump and his allies,” including disbanding units overseeing foreign election interference and enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Moreover, without public objection from DOJ officials, Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of every defendant that DOJ attorneys successfully prosecuted for their involvement in the January 6 insurrection, including violent offenders and heads of white supremacy groups. These pardons create a permission structure for future political violence in communities across the nation.

The politicization of the DOJ makes Americans less safe and secure, creates a two-tiered system of justice, and degrades the rule of law.

CAP’s report analyzing Project 2025 discussed how the extremist blueprint recommended overturning settled legal precedent that insulates independent agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission or the NLRB, from presidential meddling. The report also highlighted Project 2025’s call to allow the next president complete control over these congressionally created agencies that were designed to help protect Americans’ safety, health, and prosperity. In its first 100 days, the Trump administration has aggressively implemented this recommendation.

Invoking the unitary executive theory, President Trump has fired multiple leaders of independent agencies without cause, despite Congress’ specific statutory directives forbidding this. Multiple lawsuits are making their way through the federal courts as the Trump administration is pushing to reverse the Supreme Court’s precedential decision of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which upheld the right of Congress to shield leaders of independent agencies from politically based firings. Trump also issued a sweeping executive order on February 18 requiring that independent agencies start reporting directly to his Office of Management and Budget, that he and the attorney general dictate legal interpretations to independent agencies, and that the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) review every significant regulatory action recommended by independent agencies.

Concurrently, the administration has attempted to practically eliminate entire independent agencies, such as the CFPB, which Congress set up to help protect consumers against fraudulent actions by financial institutions and other companies. The CFPB has now stopped all of its investigations and dropped lawsuits against big banks and tech companies.

As CAP has explained in a series of articles, when independent agencies are politicized, it endangers the public interest and can lead to corrupt agency actions that favor a president and his allies.

As CAP previously analyzed, the Project 2025 blueprint called for firing tens of thousands of expert civil servants and replacing them with political loyalists who could quickly implement the new president’s orders. By expelling civil servants who may simply be doing their jobs when they push back against the president’s illegal or inappropriate instructions, the president could effectively nullify the merit-based civil service, a key guardrail that helps protect all Americans. This, too, is coming to fruition.

One of President Trump’s first executive orders reinstated “Schedule F” from the end of his first term, now calling it “Schedule Policy/Career.” Under the guise of holding federal employees more accountable for poor performance, this order aims to strip many career civil servants—who the Trump administration has deemed to be part of the recalcitrant “deep state”—of their job protections, turning them into at-will employees. The White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is now taking steps to implement this order, with federal agencies given until April 20 to submit interim recommendations about which employees are subject to the radical Schedule Policy/Career. Days before that deadline, on April 18, OPM published a notice of proposed rulemaking to move further toward implementation. But notably, the executive order is being challenged in federal court as illegal.

Although Schedule Policy/Career has not yet been fully implemented, DOGE has taken parallel steps to weaken the civil service. According to some estimates, nearly 200,000 federal employees have been pushed out of their jobs in the past three months, with many more placed on leave, while some were rehired. Some civil servants, including at the Social Security Administration and IRS, were fired or put on leave after attempting to oppose illegal or inappropriate requests made by DOGE, including by trying to block DOGE’s access to Americans’ sensitive personal information.

All of these dynamics have created a culture of fear among federal employees. This was a stated goal of Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, who said the government should have a smaller and demoralized civil service, noting: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected.”

With expert civil servants being dismissed from positions designed to help everyday Americans, communities across the nation are already seeing degraded services related to Social Security benefits, manufacturing, weather forecasting, Head Start, and countless others.

The governing road map of Project 2025, as discussed in previous CAP analysis, recommended that the president ignore settled legal precedent and seize control over the federal budget via impoundment. Impoundment, which is “illegal under federal law, refers to the executive branch’s refusal to spend appropriated monies per Congress’ directives.” Citing the need to curb out-of-control federal spending by Congress, the Trump administration has aggressively impounded appropriated funds.

Almost immediately after inauguration, the Trump administration, aided by DOGE, began unilaterally slashing hundreds of billions of dollars of appropriated funds while dismantling wide swaths of departments and agencies. For example, the administration completely disbanded and shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and ordered the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education. Multiple lawsuits are pending, with some judges deciding at least temporarily to stop the administration’s impoundments.

In a rare moment of pushback from a Republican senator, Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) joined her committee counterpart Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) on March 27 to accuse “President Trump of illegally refusing to spend $2.9 billion approved by Congress.” As the senators pointed out, Trump’s impoundment blocked funding in several important programs designed to help Americans. Per CAP’s analysis, these programs include funding for cancer research, consumer protection operations, and firefighting, among many others.

The Project 2025 guidebook also suggested that the next president cement political power by limiting the effectiveness and reach of the media’s news reporting, highlighted in CAP’s earlier report. A weakened press is less able to act as an appropriate check on elected officials who promote false narratives, suppress dissent, or engage in corruption. At the same time, an uninformed electorate is less likely to stand up against an imperial presidency. Regrettably, in the first 100 days of the Trump administration, many steps have been taken to diminish the media and weaken the First Amendment’s freedom of the press.

President Trump’s handpicked chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Brendan Carr, who wrote a chapter of Project 2025, has already used the independent agency’s regulatory authority to target multiple media companies that have angered Trump, including by attempting “to root out allegations of left-leaning bias” and policies disfavored by the president, such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Carr’s targets include licensees that broadcast the programming of CBS, NBC, ABC, and public broadcasters NPR and PBS—some of which Trump characterized as lawbreaking companies whose licenses should be revoked. Carr has started an unprecedented inquiry into whether CBS’ editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris amounts to prohibited “news distortion,” a regulatory action that has been widely condemned, including by the conservative editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. It wrote, “Trump clearly wants to intimidate the press, and it’s no credit to the FCC to see it reinforcing that with an inquiry.”  On April 22, the executive producer of “60 Minutes” resigned, citing a loss of journalistic independence at a time when Trump is suing the network for $20 billion and when CBS’ parent company needs Trump administration clearance for a corporate merger it is pursuing.

These retaliatory tactics can instill fear in media companies and reporters, who may become reticent to report news that Trump dislikes. In one instance, ABC News decided soon after the November 2024 election to settle a multimillion dollar defamation lawsuit brought by Trump, even though the company had a strong legal defense.

In another break with precedent, the White House is now controlling which media outlets can attend press briefings, barring The Associated Press from attending several briefings. Similarly, the Department of Defense removed many mainstream news outlets from their dedicated workstations. The Trump administration also gutted the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which deliver news to countries that lack a free press.

CAP’s October report discussed how the authors of the Project 2025 road map had recommended that the next president push the legal boundaries of the Insurrection Act and deploy the military for domestic law enforcement. CAP voiced concern that under this purported authority, a president could send troops into communities across the country to arrest or use deadly force against Americans engaged in lawful protest. Indeed, the Trump administration initially appeared to be headed in that direction.

In a day one executive order, Trump gave his secretaries of defense and homeland security 90 days to submit recommendations for gaining control of the southern border, specifically on whether to invoke the Insurrection Act. It is not yet clear what—if any—recommendation they have made. As CAP wrote in a February analysis, “If invoked, the Insurrection Act would open the door to federal troops patrolling local communities and conducting large-scale immigration raids throughout the country.” This is especially concerning given that Trump and some of his top aides have a long history of advocating for using the military against Americans, including protesters. It remains to be seen to what extent Trump may use the Insurrection Act to stifle dissent from his perceived enemies.

Also analyzed in CAP’s report on Project 2025 was the plan’s recommendation to reduce the Senate’s constitutional authority to confirm executive branch nominees by having the new president bypass the normal confirmation process and install his nominees in “acting” administrative roles. However, starting before inauguration, Republicans won majority control of the Senate, and Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has steered the chamber’s schedule to ensure swift confirmation of Trump’s executive branch nominees after public pressure from Trump to act quickly.

Yet the Trump administration has deployed another tactic to quickly exert sweeping control over departments and agencies: unilaterally hiring “special government employees,” such as Elon Musk and other DOGE officials, as key leaders making important personnel, spending, and programmatic decisions about those entities. These senior-level hirings weaken the Senate’s constitutional duty to advise and consent on the qualifications and fitness of key leaders who oversee departments. Several federal judges have temporarily halted the far-reaching departmental actions dictated by DOGE officials, many of whom have clashed with department employees who were attempting to protect the public interest.

In total, the Trump administration has seen the Republican-controlled Senate accede to the president’s wishes to quickly confirm his official nominees while also allowing special government employees to be hired outside the normal confirmation process and wield tremendous power atop departments and agencies.

President Trump has also gone beyond the extreme measures predicted above in CAP’s October report about Project 2025. Other antidemocratic actions—not covered explicitly in CAP’s earlier report—that the Trump administration is taking to build an imperial presidency are outlined below.

There are other assaults on laws and the Constitution that comprise key parts of Trump’s pattern of trying to lock in his presidential power. Without adherence to the rule of law, democracies can quickly crumble, as governments around the world have seen.

For example, Trump and his allies have taken steps to thwart the constitutional power of the federal courts, a crucial institutional bulwark to protect the rule of law. The president and allies such as Elon Musk, who owns one of the largest social media platforms, have repeatedly assailed judges who issue decisions contrary to Trump’s wishes. In some cases, they have called for these judges’ impeachment, which drew a rare rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Moreover, in some instances, the Trump administration has failed to fully comply with court orders, again resulting in rebukes from judges, as discussed further below.

In another strike against the rule of law, as a purported way to fight illegal immigration, the Trump administration is trying to limit birthright citizenship, despite this fundamental right being enshrined in the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court set a May hearing date to consider procedural aspects of challenges brought by litigants on this issue.

Relatedly, as part of its attempt to deport violent immigrants, the administration has adopted a novel approach to interpreting the Alien Enemies Act to allow it to summarily deport immigrants and legal residents without due process, including to a brutal prison in El Salvador. At least temporarily, a far-right majority of the Supreme Court upheld this approach on April 8 but importantly required some due process for immigrants subject to summary deportation. Two days later, a unanimous Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a legal resident of the United States that the DOJ admitted was sent to the El Salvador prison erroneously. Yet the Trump administration, thus far, is refusing to comply. Despite these judicial decisions requiring due process for people under the threat of removal from the United States, Trump’s senior director for counterterrorism, Sebastian Gorka, said that Americans who publicly criticize Abrego Garcia’s removal to El Salvador “hate America” and could be committing a crime by “aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists.”

In a 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision issued in the Abrego Garcia case on April 17—authored by conservative Reagan appointee Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson—the court starkly warned of potential unconstitutional outcomes, writing that the Trump administration is “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.” The court said this could lead to results that “would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood. … And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies?” On April 16, President Trump, in fact, mused that he could expel U.S. citizens and send them to El Salvador, even though no legal basis exists to allow this.

In yet another test for the rule of law, DOGE has been operating in ways that courts have found violate numerous laws, including statutes related to impoundment and federal personnel. As CAP has explained in prior articles, DOGE may have also violated privacy laws designed to protect Americans’ sensitive personal information.

In another sweeping move, Trump issued an executive order on April 9 that could upend statutory procedures dictating how executive branch departments and agencies must implement or repeal regulations pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Trump’s order grants executive branch agencies authority “to immediately repeal unlawful regulations” under the APA’s limited “good cause” exception, without required notice to and comment from the public. This power grab not only disturbs explicit law but could result in regulatory outcomes that favor Trump and his corporate allies and punish his perceived enemies.

Trump has also assailed state and local officials who disagree with him, including by threatening to deny federal funding for essential services. For example, Trump blocked federal funding and contracts for Maine after Gov. Janet Mills (D) rejected his demand to enforce a ban on transgender athletes. And during the tragic California wildfires in early 2025, Trump threatened to withhold aid unless the state changed its environmental policies.

In another unprecedented step that placed political loyalty above laws and norms, Trump fired several key military leaders in February, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as the top lawyers for several military services. Trump claimed those individuals were not focused on the military’s core mission, perhaps “reflect[ing] the president’s insistence that the military’s leadership is too mired in diversity issues.” In a sharp bipartisan response, five former secretaries of defense asked Congress to hold hearings into the “reckless” dismissals, saying that Trump’s firing of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff may have violated Congress’ legislative intent that he complete his full four-year term. They also said the firings “raise troubling questions about the administration’s desire to politicize the military and to remove legal constraints on the President’s power.”

As authoritarians around the world do, President Trump is trying to assert far more control over elections. Assuming Trump does not try to postpone or cancel the 2026 or 2028 federal elections under the guise of a national emergency, his policy choices appear to be trying to produce Republican victories to cement his power. In March, Trump issued one of his most extreme executive orders, which mandates expansive changes to federal election procedures, such as making requirements much more stringent regarding mail-in ballots and requiring unnecessarily onerous forms of photo identification. Multiple parties are suing to block the order, pointing out that Trump lacks the constitutional or legal authority to order such changes. As CAP has explained, these powers squarely belong to the states and Congress, per the Constitution.

Trump also continues to threaten to serve a third term, despite the 22nd Amendment’s clear prohibition that presidents cannot be elected to more than two terms. In 2020, Trump waged a multipronged effort to hold onto the presidency, which resulted in the January 6 insurrection and his second impeachment. It is not surprising that he would try to raise novel and antidemocratic theories that twist the Constitution, laws, and norms to extend his presidency.

Trump is also weaponizing the vast power of the government to bully his perceived enemies in civil society, a favorite tool of authoritarians. For example, the Trump administration has waged an attack on people’s First Amendment free speech rights and their Sixth Amendment right to counsel, striking fear into many who want to exercise one of Americans’ most cherished freedoms: dissent. Perhaps this should not be surprising given that Trump said last year he was prepared to be a dictator for his first day in office and would bring “retribution” to his domestic enemies. According to Ty Cobb, who served as a White House attorney during Trump’s first term, “What you see here is a group of people who think they missed an opportunity the first time around — that they didn’t fully realize what they now believe to be the powers of the presidency.” Cobb also issued a public letter, along with several other former Trump officials and prominent Republicans, that stated, “No matter one’s party or politics, every American should reject the notion that the awesome power of the presidency can be used to pursue individual vendettas. … This is the path of autocracy, not democracy.”

If key pillars of civil society are scared into bending to the wishes of the president, he can weaken his opposition. The Trump administration claims that it is targeting civil society entities that are improperly promoting DEI, illegal immigration, or antisemitism—possible pretexts to broadly immobilize pro-democracy forces.

A primary target of the Trump administration is major universities, which traditionally have been hubs for progressive social movements and which “Trump has criticized as bastions of left-wing thought.” Among other things, Trump has claimed that several universities have not done enough to crack down on antisemitism, “illegal protests,” and DEI; and, as such, he threatened to cut off billions of dollars in aggregate federal funding for these universities, including money for medical research. Although Columbia University largely capitulated to Trump’s demands, other schools, including Harvard and Georgetown University Law Center, are standing strong. In recent days, published reports claim that the IRS is planning to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status after Trump publicly stated that the university should perhaps be considered a “Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness.’” And on April 21, Harvard filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s decision to halt billions of dollars in federal funding to the university as unlawful.

Another target is high-profile law firms. Trump has issued executive orders designed to punish several large firms because of their ties to or representation of Trump’s perceived enemies, such as special counsels Jack Smith and Robert Mueller, or the firms’ defense of certain causes with which Trump disagrees. But these executive orders almost certainly violate several constitutional rights, including the First Amendment right to free speech and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, and are affronts to the legal system. Although some big law firms relented and reached agreements with the Trump administration, other firms have chosen to fight back. Several judges have already ruled in the firms’ favor, at least temporarily stopping many portions of Trump’s executive orders, including provisions barring law firm attorneys from federal government buildings—including courthouses—or jobs.

The Trump administration, Elon Musk, and congressional Republicans have also begun a steady assault against key progressive organizations and philanthropies, with the White House reportedly looking into ways to punish left-leaning foes. These include ActBlue, which fundraises principally for Democratic candidates; Arabella Advisors, a philanthropic consulting firm; Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit that has taken actions to hold Trump accountable; and hundreds of large philanthropies that have been warned they could be investigated for DEI-related activities. In April, DOGE even attempted to install itself at the criminal justice nonprofit Vera Institute before reversing that attempt. Reports indicate that the Trump administration may also be preparing to “[mount] a sweeping offensive on America’s nonprofit sector,” including through executive actions that would try to strip them of their tax-exempt status, as it already threatened to do to Harvard.

Even Trump’s tariff regime provides a way for him to gain political leverage over a key constituency: the business world. Many corporations reportedly “fear Trump’s wrath” and are afraid to speak out against his trade policy, which makes their task all the more difficult if they choose to ask Trump to exempt their industry from his tariffs or want to work with him more generally on business-related issues. Relatedly, on April 8, Trump bragged that other countries are “kissing my ass” to negotiate tariffs, with one political writer remarking, “the real goal of Trump’s tariff system is to consolidate power through the granting of exceptions.”

The Trump administration’s far-reaching actions have generally been met with timidity from Congress, the courts, and civil society, yet pushback has started to emerge in some areas.

Republicans who control the Senate and House of Representatives have failed to meaningfully oppose Trump’s weakening of the legislative branch, even where his actions directly conflict with their Article I prerogatives. Many lawmakers appear to be “enthusiastically” ceding power to the leader of their party. Others admit that they fear political revenge, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) saying: “We are all afraid. … I am oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice because retaliation is real, and that’s not right.” These dynamics destabilize the balance of power envisioned by the founders to the detriment of the American people.

In contrast to Congress, the federal courts appear to be more willing to stand as a constitutional bulwark against the Trump administration’s power grabs.t is too soon, however, to draw solid conclusions from the more than 200 cases challenging the administration’s allegedly illegal or unconstitutional actions that are winding their way through litigation. As noted above, in some cases, the Trump administration appears to be avoiding full compliance with court orders, such as in the unanimous Supreme Court decision ordering the administration to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia. Relatedly, one district court judge determined there was probable cause to find officials from the Trump administration in criminal contempt for violating an order to return alleged Venezuelan gang members who the administration was in the process of flying to a Salvadoran prison.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Abrego Garcia case pointedly warned about the contemptuous behavior of the Trump administration toward the judiciary, writing: “The respect that courts must accord the Executive must be reciprocated by the Executive’s respect for the courts.” The court concluded by stating that it “cling[s] to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos.”

The response by civil society to the Trump administration has been uneven during most of the first 100 days. But in recent days, there appears to be a growing movement of civil society organizations willing to defend the rule of law. For example, more than 220 academic leaders of higher education institutions around the nation joined a public letter of solidarity, saying, in part, “As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.” Many of those same universities have joined a lawsuit suing to block the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to their federal research funding. Additionally, since Perkins Coie sued the Trump administration in March over its executive order, many stakeholders in the legal community have shown support for the firm, including more than 500 law firms and coalitions of law professors, leading legal groups, and bar associations. Finally, in the past several days, more than 300 philanthropic foundations launched a “solidarity campaign,” including a public letter, with plans of “standing up to a hostile government.”

Importantly, according to reports, everyday Americans—by the millions—have attended public rallies to protest the Trump administration’s actions. Some experts have concluded that if at least 3.5 percent of a nation’s population actively participate in protests, it spurs serious political change.

President Trump’s first 100 days in office have taken a chainsaw to democracy and brought the United States to the doorstep of authoritarianism. Although the United States is the world’s oldest continuing democracy, it remains fragile. The next 100 days of the Trump presidency will be crucial to determining whether Congress, the courts, and civil society—including everyday Americans—will use their collective power to slow Trump’s aggressive march to building an imperial presidency.

The authors would like to thank Robert Benson for his substantive contributions to this report, specifically involving his analysis of authoritarian regimes around the world.