Every time Donald Trump is in office, the left starts screaming about a “constitutional crisis.” It has used the term so often — and so recklessly — that it’s lost all meaning. Just like the constant accusations of “racism” and “dictatorship,” this overuse doesn’t just weaken the left's argument; it desensitizes the public to real threats. When everything is a crisis, nothing is — and the left’s alarmist rhetoric is wearing thin. That said, it may be right, just for the wrong reasons.
“We are three weeks into the second Trump presidency—three weeks—and tonight, there are warnings that the U.S. is dangerously close to a constitutional crisis,” CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins warned Monday night. “Now, the first shoe on this dropped when a federal judge today said the White House is defying his order to unfreeze billions of dollars in federal aid, marking the first time that we've had a judge expressly accuse the Trump administration of ignoring a court ruling.”
Collins continued, ”And in a separate case today, federal employees, here in Washington, told a judge that the administration was defying another order by not reinstating workers who had been put on leave. Now, this all has prominent Democrats, and many of the nation's top constitutional scholars, declaring that the U.S. is on the brink of a reckoning.”
>> @kaitlancollins: "We are three weeks into the second Trump presidency, three weeks, and tonight, there are warnings that the U.S. is dangerously close to a constitutional crisis." pic.twitter.com/PCHCm6MmRf
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 11, 2025
CNN’s Chief Supreme Court analyst also chimed in on the “looming constitutional crisis.”
“Vice President JD Vance, Elon Musk, and others in the Trump administration are openly challenging the centuries-old power of the nation’s judiciary, foreshadowing a possible constitutional breakdown of American government,” wrote Joan Biskupic. “It’s not simply that the new administration has flouted a raft of federal statutes and prompted a flood of legal challenges. It’s that some of Donald Trump’s top advisers have cast doubt on whether rulings on those lawsuits would even constrain the president.”
Related: Congressman Drafting Articles of Impeachment Against Lawless Anti-Trump Judge
Let’s be honest about what’s happening here. We may be in the midst of a constitutional crisis, but not for the reasons the left claims. The recent rulings by left-wing judges limiting Trump’s ability to run the executive branch are the problem — not Trump’s defiance of them.
The main issue is the judiciary's role in checking executive actions. Court decisions have stopped Trump from controlling federal spending. Democrats are, true to form, against it, and Democrat attorneys general are weaponizing the judiciary to stop it. In the past few days, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued a temporary injunction blocking both DOGE and even the Treasury Secretary from accessing department data, and then U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell Jr. ruled that the Trump administration violated court orders by freezing federal funding.
If judges have the power to stop the executive branch from managing the executive branch, then the judiciary branch has far too much power, and we are descending rapidly into a judicial oligarchy where judges dictate policy instead of elected officials. This is a threat to our U.S. Constitution and our Republic.
As Vice President JD Vance said, ‘If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.”
Conflicts between the executive and the judiciary branches are nothing new. However, there is no legal basis to restrict the executive branch from managing the executive branch.
This is far different from Joe Biden’s executive order canceling billions of dollars in student debt. It was recognized well before he took that action that he had no legal authority to do so, and the Supreme Court rightfully ruled that his executive order was illegal. But in an attempt to buy the votes of young people, Biden simply ignored it and used other methods to cancel student debt.
He even had the audacity to brag about how he was defying the Supreme Court.
"My MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials, and special interests stepped in and sued us and the Supreme Court blocked it. But that didn't stop me," Biden boasted last year.
Funny, I can’t find any examples of Kaitlan Collins or Joan Biskupic warning about a constitutional crisis when Biden defied the Supreme Court.
