Trump’s ‘Catch-Me-If-You-Can’ presidency keeps finding ways around the law

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A plain reading of the law about presidents on coins says the face of a living president should not be on currency. And yet President Donald Trump’s is, after his Treasury Department exploited a different law related to commemorative coins.

The law says a president must not commit the US military into hostilities for longer than 60 days without congressional approval . The US has been in a conflict with Iran for more than six months, although the administration says it has taken time-outs in the war. Previous presidents from both parties have danced around this requirement , but nothing on the level of Trump’s war on Iran.

Chief Justice John Roberts called it “ likely unlawful ” for Trump to tear down part of the White House and build something else. And yet construction is happening around the clock to get that White House ballroom done for Trump to enjoy.

Laws would seem to require Congress to approve the construction of a triumphal arch adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery. The administration isn’t waiting and the Department of Interior appears primed to start excavation shortly.

The law says suspected criminals should not be put to death without a trial . And yet the US military has taken out numerous alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.

The law says Congress creates agencies of the federal government, like USAID , the US Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau . Trump has tried to end some of them anyway, either through starvation or outright deletion.

The law says Congress decides where money should go. That didn’t stop Trump’s administration from cutting research funding and aid money it simply disagreed with.

The law says the government should not be entering people’s homes without a judicial warrant . But Immigration and Customs Enforcement has utilized that power.

The law says the Federal Reserve should operate independently, but that isn’t stopping Trump from trying to pressure the Fed to lower interest rates — most recently via a threat to cease trade with top partners .

The list goes on, and with it the complicated legal arguments the Trump administration has made – in those instances when it has had to make them.

Even when faced with setbacks in court, Trump’s administration has brazenly looked for end-runs.

A judge ruled Trump’s administration can’t ignore the law and put his name alongside John F. Kennedy’s on the Kennedy Center. But the administration plans to add it to the building anyway, by adding an inscription giving Trump credit for the rehab job. And if the administration can’t put the name on the building, it threatens to tear the whole thing down .

The tearing-down of buildings the president should not be able to tear down is an apt analogy for this whole presidency. Once something is gone, it’s gone. It doesn’t matter if getting rid of it was illegal.

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Roberts sided with liberals on the court to argue – in an unsuccessful dissent – that Trump’s East Wing project should be halted because it was “likely unlawful.” In his dissent, Roberts quoted Winston Churchill during World War II.

“We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us,” Churchill had said. Roberts didn’t mention that Churchill made those comments to argue the British House of Commons should be rebuilt as it had stood before it was destroyed by Nazi bombs. Churchill wanted to rebuild it as a monument to the British form of government.

Trump saw the White House East Wing as a tear-down project — a (likely) illegal tear-down in Roberts’ eyes. But Trump’s monument to himself – one of many — is getting built nonetheless. Asking Congress for the taxpayer money to help with the project came only after the walls were torn down.

It has become a pattern during Trump’s second term that the president does something; Congress shrugs; and the Supreme Court allows him to proceed, regardless of whether what he’s doing is, strictly speaking, legal.

A week before Roberts’ historical lament, the liberal Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson blasted the court’s conservatives, including Roberts, for allowing Trump’s executive order meant to cut down on mail-in voting to proceed, again on a technicality.

The White House has a “Catch-Me-If-You-Can approach,” Jackson said.

In the case of disrupting mail-in ballots, Trump may ultimately get caught; the executive order still faces lawsuits and a new injunction that make it seem impossible to impose, at least for this election.

Trump also got caught on birthright citizenship, where justices rejected his attempt to set aside the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. And on tariffs, they said no, he could not exploit national emergency laws to upend the economy.

He’s still looking for ways around that decision.

But on so many other issues, Trump’s administration has picked the laws it wants to follow, diverted funds here or there, and said little in public about what it’s up to. Congress has shrugged. Courts have had trouble keeping up, and the Supreme Court has preferred to let Trump go about his business while things get sorted out.

That dynamic seems likely to change, at least somewhat, come next year if Democrats win control of either the House or the Senate. They will try to restrict funding for Trump’s goals.

But it will be an interesting question for Democrats who want to replace Trump in the White House in 2029. Should they spend even more taxpayer money to tear down the East Wing behemoth he’s building? They won’t be able to go back and take the coins with his face out of circulation. They can’t un-deport people who didn’t get a hearing . And it will take time and effort, if the next president is so inclined, to rebuild the system of scientific and medical research funding the Trump administration cut back.

On so many of the things Trump has done, catching up may not even be an option.

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根据有关总统头像印在硬币上的法律条文，在世总统的头像不应印在货币上。然而，唐纳德·特朗普总统的头像却出现在了货币上，这是因为他的财政部利用了另一项与纪念币相关的法律漏洞。

法律规定，未经国会批准，总统不得将美国军队投入敌对行动超过60天。美国与伊朗的冲突已持续六个多月，尽管特朗普政府声称已暂停战争。此前两党的总统都曾试图规避这一规定，但从未像特朗普对伊朗发动战争那样规模巨大。

首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨称，特朗普拆除白宫部分建筑并另建新房“很可能违法”。然而，为了尽快建成供特朗普享用的白宫宴会厅，施工却在夜以继日地进行。

根据法律规定，在阿灵顿国家公墓旁建造凯旋门似乎需要国会批准。但政府并未等待，内政部似乎已做好很快开工的准备。

法律规定，未经审判不得处死犯罪嫌疑人。然而，美国军方却在加勒比海和太平洋地区击沉了多艘涉嫌贩毒的船只。

法律规定，国会设立联邦政府机构，例如美国国际开发署、美国教育部和消费者金融保护局。然而，特朗普却试图终止其中一些机构的运作，要么削减预算，要么直接撤销。

法律规定，国会负责决定资金的用途。但这并没有阻止特朗普政府削减其不认同的研究经费和援助资金。

法律规定，政府未经司法搜查令不得擅自闯入民宅。但移民和海关执法局却滥用了这项权力。

法律规定美联储应独立运作，但这并没有阻止特朗普试图向美联储施压以降低利率——最近一次是通过威胁停止与主要贸易伙伴的贸易。

这样的例子不胜枚举，其中也包括特朗普政府在不得不提出法律论点时所提出的复杂法律论点。

即使在法庭上遭遇挫折，特朗普政府也厚颜无耻地寻找绕过法律的办法。

一位法官裁定，特朗普政府不能无视法律，将他的名字与约翰·F·肯尼迪的名字一起刻在肯尼迪中心上。但特朗普政府仍计划强行将他的名字刻在建筑上，方法是添加一段铭文，将翻新工程的功劳归于特朗普。如果无法将他的名字刻在建筑上，特朗普政府威胁要将整座建筑拆除。

总统拆除那些他本不应该有权拆除的建筑物，这恰好可以类比于整个总统任期。一旦某样东西消失了，就永远消失了。拆除它是否违法也无关紧要。

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罗伯茨大法官与最高法院的自由派大法官站在同一阵线，提出异议，认为特朗普的东翼扩建项目应该停止，因为它“很可能违法”，但这一异议最终被驳回。在异议意见中，罗伯茨引用了温斯顿·丘吉尔在二战期间的讲话。

“我们塑造建筑，之后建筑也塑造我们，”丘吉尔曾这样说过。罗伯茨没有提到，丘吉尔发表这番言论是为了论证英国下议院应该按照纳粹轰炸前的原貌重建。丘吉尔希望将其重建为英国政体的丰碑。

特朗普将白宫东翼视为一个拆除项目——在罗伯茨看来，这很可能是非法拆除。但特朗普为自己建造的众多纪念碑之一，却仍在继续建造。直到墙体被拆除后，他才向国会申请纳税人的钱来资助这个项目。

在特朗普的第二个任期内，已经形成了一种模式：总统做了某件事；国会耸耸肩；最高法院允许他继续进行，无论他所做的事情严格来说是否合法。

在罗伯茨发表历史性哀叹的前一周，自由派最高法院大法官凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊猛烈抨击了包括罗伯茨在内的最高法院保守派大法官，指责他们允许特朗普旨在减少邮寄投票的行政命令继续执行，而这又是出于技术原因。

杰克逊说，白宫采取的是“你追我赶”的策略。

如果特朗普试图干扰邮寄选票，他最终可能会被抓到；这项行政命令仍面临诉讼和新的禁令，这使得它似乎不可能实施，至少在本届选举中是如此。

特朗普在出生公民权问题上也遭遇挫败，大法官们驳回了他试图推翻宪法第十四修正案的请求。在关税问题上，大法官们也表示，他不能利用国家紧急状态法来扰乱经济。

他仍在寻找规避该决定的方法。

但在其他诸多问题上，特朗普政府却自行选择要遵守的法律，随意挪用资金，并且很少公开说明其意图。国会对此漠不关心。法院难以应对，而最高法院则倾向于让特朗普继续推行其政策，等待问题得到解决。

如果民主党明年赢得众议院或参议院的控制权，这种局面至少在一定程度上可能会发生变化。他们会试图限制特朗普各项计划的资金支持。

但对于那些希望在2029年取代特朗普入主白宫的民主党人来说，这将是一个有趣的问题：他们是否应该花费更多纳税人的钱来拆除他正在建造的庞大的东翼大楼？他们无法让印有他头像的硬币退出流通，也无法让那些未经听证就被驱逐出境的人重新获得遣返资格。而且，如果下一任总统愿意，重建被特朗普政府削减的科学和医学研究经费体系也需要时间和精力。

对于特朗普所做的很多事情，追赶可能根本就不是一个选项。