What is a constitutional crisis? - And why we’re in onehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/10/what-is-constitutional-crisis/Nearly four weeks into his second term, President Donald Trump has potentially broken laws, steamrolled Congress and has a billionaire donor trying to dismantle the U.S. government, as his administration taunts the authority of the courts to stop them — in what appears to be a pursuit of some of the most expansive and aggressive presidential power in American history.
Many experts believe that means we are in a constitutional crisis because it’s not clear if the country’s leaders will follow or stand up for the democratic system of government set up nearly 250 years ago. There are very few guardrails left if the United States has a president willing to break the law and a Congress unwilling or unable to react.
“We absolutely are in a constitutional crisis, there is no other way to describe an executive branch acting as if the legislative branch was consultative,” said Ben Raderstorf, with the anti-authoritarian group Protect Democracy and author of the newsletter If You Can Keep It.
https://www.ifyoucankeepit.org/“They’re shredding the Constitution; it’s gone,” said Kimberly Wehle, a law professor at University of Baltimore Law School, a legal contributor for ABC News and author of the newsletter Simple Politics. “He’s converting himself into a monarch with unlimited power.”
“We are moving toward an authoritarian version of the governing spectrum,” said David Alexander Bateman, an expert on democratic institutions at Cornell University.
What makes a constitutional crisis, and why one’s happening now
A number of things: Trump has tried to declare a constitutional right — birthright citizenship — unconstitutional. He has ignored the fact that Congress set up government institutions, like the U.S. Agency for International Development or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as he tries to weaken or shut them down. He froze federal spending. He’s fired watchdogs ignoring laws on the books about that. On Monday, a judge found he’s ignored at least one court order to stop doing some of this.
He is, in essence, trying to shove aside the other two branches of government: Congress and the courts.
“I think what makes this a constitutional crisis is all the things they are doing that are blatantly ignoring the law,” Raderstorf said.
“He’s just saying the rules don’t apply to me,” Wehle said.
“He’s trying to put himself in the category of presidents who reshape the country for decades,” said Michael Anthony Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University.
He listed off presidents who made sweeping changes to government and society like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. “But all of them understood there are basic rules — you don’t just dispense with Congress or ignore laws that are on the books, and it’s not at the whim of executive orders.”
The speed at which this is happening makes it hard for anyone to keep up, which many see as a purposeful strategy to stun the opposition. It’s hard to tell what’s happening in the middle of so much action.
“We’re witnessing a reorganization of our three branches of government, and we don’t know how much of a reorganization there will be,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School and host of the “Passing Judgment” podcast. “We’re at a very precarious place.”
What happens next: Watch Congress and the courts
Much of the damage is done, but it’s not too late for forces to push Trump to back down, say experts.
Like, do members of Congress stand up to Trump remaking U.S. government into a more imperial presidency?
Congress has broad investigative powers over the executive branch; they could subpoena Elon Musk and his allies and figure out what private, sensitive information they gained access to within the government. The Senate could refuse to approve any more of Trump’s nominees until he reopens U.S. agencies. And Congress could pass laws preventing this from happening again.
So far, none of that is happening, which is troublesome, say experts.
“That’s what keeps me up at night,” said Kreis, the law professor at Georgia State University. “If members of Congress don’t stand up for their own authority and power, nobody else is going to.”
Politics could also slow Trump down. The midterms are in two years, and perhaps members of Congress pay a price for excusing — or celebrating — the demise of the Constitution, said Wehle.
Some Republicans are calling out the Trump administration’s cuts to billions of biomedical research through the National Institutes of Health, which affect hospitals and universities in their states.
“It’s one thing when you conduct a self-coup that people walking out in the real world don’t really see,” said Raderstorf. “It’s another when major economic actors in every state could be devastated.”
And does the Trump administration start steamrolling judges, too?
On Monday, a federal judge said the administration has been ignoring a court order that they start back up federal grants. That’s also troublesome, say experts.
“If the Trump administration starts to ignore decisions by federal judges, that is the definition of a constitutional crisis,” Levinson said. “It means one branch is ignoring a coequal branch. That’s when there is a three-alarm fire.”
“What we are at the precipice here is the rejection of that premise of rule of law,” said Raderstorf, “and that’s where things get really scary.”
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