Don’t Waste a Constitutional Crisis

Laurence Tribe
Tribe contends that the courts—including the Supremes, despite their diminished reputation and recent tendency toward overt partisanship—remain the best and possibly only remaining guardrail protecting our democracy from what he sees as a slew of existential depredations being inflicted on it by Trump. Photo: Manny Ceneta/AFP/Getty Images
John Heilemann
February 12, 2025

Donald Trump’s second presidential term, while different from his first in many ways, has remained perfectly consistent in one glaring respect: His behavior during his first three weeks back has once again served as a full-employment act for legal analysts—from law school heavyweights and white shoe partners to former federal prosecutors and public defenders—who have been called back into 24/7 service to guide the rest of us through the thicket of obscure, arcane, and often unprecedented legal issues that Trump’s White House modus vivendi tends to place at the center of our politics. Still haunted by your first encounter with the Emoluments Clause circa 2017? Just wait until you get a load of the Impoundment Control Act, bub.