A common thread running through the controversies of the new fall season of America’s bitter politics is Donald Trump’s attempt to impose unfettered, often unprecedented presidential power on multiple fronts.
The story of his second term will ultimately be defined by how much states, courts and underpowered Washington Democrats do to frustrate his expansive impulses, and — crucially for constitutional governance — whether he takes any notice.
The power struggle drove two key showdowns waged by the White House at the weekend: over its plans to deploy troops to enforce its immigration crackdowns in Portland, Oregon, and Chicago; and over growing pressure to end the government shutdown.
But the desire of a president in a hurry to wield personal authority also lies behind almost every other aspect of a new term that has provoked fears of creeping authoritarianism. It applied to foreign policy as Trump worked at the weekend to impose his Gaza peace plan and preview an escalation of legally questionable strikes against alleged cartel boats off Venezuela.
And the Supreme Court’s new term that begins Monday will wrestle with critical questions of presidential power, including Trump’s authority to wage his trade wars with tariffs and his attempts to undermine the independence of government agencies like the Federal Reserve.
Trump using troops as ‘a political weapon’ against Americans
While Americans rested, watched college football or enjoyed early fall weather over the weekend, Trump’s power games intensified by the hour.
In a major new confrontation over the constitutional authority of the presidency, Trump on Sunday ordered 200 California National Guard members to Oregon after a federal judge blocked his deployment of the Northwestern state’s own reservists, rejecting his claim that it’s a “war zone.”
California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who dueled Trump over National Guard deployments to Los Angeles earlier this year, vowed to resist. “This isn’t about public safety, it’s about power,” he said in a statement. “The commander-in-chief is using the US military as a political weapon against American citizens.”
Trump’s move comes days after he told US generals and admirals summoned to a meeting in Virginia that the military should use American cities as training grounds and suggested he’d need the armed forces against invaders “from within.”
He provoked new disquiet about the politicization of the military, which is prohibited by law from most operations on US soil, during a speechy. in Virginia celebrating the 250th anniversary of the US Navy on Sunday.
“We send in the National Guard,” Trump said in his rally-like speech. “You know what? We send in whatever is necessary. People don’t care. They don’t want crime in their cities.”
A man holds an American flag as law enforcement officers guard the entrance to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in south Portland, Oregon, on October 3, 2025. – Carlos Barria/Reuters
Trump’s switch from trying to deploying the Oregon National Guard in Portland to mobilizing reservists in California after an adverse court ruling was the latest sign that when his attempts to wield unchecked executive might are thwarted, he will seek new pathways.
So far, however, Trump hasn’t directly defied orders by judges over the latest deployments he claims are needed to fight “domestic terrorists.” If he did, legal experts warn the country would face a genuine constitutional crisis.
The Trump-appointed judge who temporarily blocked the Oregon move argued in a striking ruling that the administration had misrepresented the public order situation in Portland. She found no “danger of a rebellion” and that state and city officials were likely to succeed in proving Trump “exceeded his constitutional authority and violated the Tenth Amendment” in ordering the deployment.
Trump’s move on the West Coast followed his authorization of the Illinois National Guard to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement assets in Chicago over the objection of the state’s Democratic governor, amid an immigration crackdown that is sending tensions soaring.
“They want mayhem on the ground. They want to create the war zone, so that they can send in even more troops,” Gov. JB Pritzker told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” on Sunday.
Trump ups the stakes in shutdown drama
Trump also went on the offensive Sunday over the shutdown, warning Democrats he’d fire more federal workers if party lawmakers don’t drop their refusal to vote for short-term funding of federal operations through late November.
Democrats are trying to jam Republicans into extending Affordable Care Act subsidies due to expire at the end of the year. Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, told Tapper that “if the president decides that the negotiations are absolutely going nowhere, then there will start to be layoffs.”
Still, the delicate politics of the shutdown may be reflected in the absence so far of federal worker layoffs that the White House previously said were imminent. Republicans, in a nod to public opinion, are open to discussions about extending Obamacare subsidies despite their historic antipathy to the law. They refuse to do so, however, while the government remains closed.
“We need them to turn the lights back on so that everyone can do their work,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
An empty hallway outside of the Senate chamber on the third day of the US government shutdown in Washington, DC. – Alex Wroblewski/AFP/Getty Images
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that a prolonged impasse that halted troop pay and funding for operations could harm military readiness. “We’re going to do the job no matter what,” Hegseth said in an interview broadcast Sunday on Fox News. “But eventually, you stop paying people. You stop doing things. You stop training. … You’re less capable of being mission ready.”
It’s ironic to hear Republicans warning that the government can’t do its work, since shuttering vast swaths of the federal machine has been a top priority of the second Trump administration.
But the president expressed optimism for victory in the standoff in an exclusive text exchange with CNN’s Tapper. “We are winning, and cutting costs, big time!” he wrote. Still, some recent polls have shown that voters blame the president and Republicans more for the shutdown than Democrats. And CNN’s Adam Cancryn and Sarah Ferris reported Friday on some quiet concerns in the president’s orbit. “I’m supposed to say this is killing the Democrats,” one Trump adviser said. “But I don’t think it helps either side, to be honest with you.”
Still, the pain and pressure that typically contribute to shutdowns ending, as federal employees in essential positions like air traffic control work without pay, has yet to mount sufficiently to change calculations of both parties that let funding lapse.
Democrats, who’ve spent months being hammered by Trump, seem emboldened by their use of the only leverage they have in Washington — the 60-vote filibuster threshold for most legislation to make it through the Senate.
“We’re at a stalemate,” Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” faulting Democrats for an attempt to use the shutdown to reverse Medicaid cuts in Trump’s massive domestic policy bill.
Still, the contours of an eventual deal to reopen — over Obamacare subsidies — seem clear. Senators to watch ahead of any shift in the dynamics of shutdown politics include Democratic moderates and members not seeking reelection who may be less exposed to pressure to fight Trump from the party’s progressive wing.
Flexing power abroad
Trump’s power plays are not confined to the United States.
The president spent the weekend maintaining heat on Israel and Hamas as he seeks to finally end the war in Gaza under his new 20-point ceasefire plan. The proposal, backed in part by key Arab states, is the administration’s most realistic effort so far to release the remaining Israeli hostages, living and dead, and to address a future for Palestinians in Gaza after the war, even if many of its proposals seem unworkable.
Trump displayed a shrewd use of power at the weekend by calling on Israel to halt its airstrikes even after the initial Hamas response failed to fully endorse his conditions. He told Tapper in their text exchange that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on fully on board with his vision, for now, boxing in the Israeli leader, who is balancing Trump’s pressure with hostility toward US ideas from right-wing coalition members.
Israeli soldiers drive tanks inside Gaza toward southern Israel on October 5, 2025. – Ariel Schalit/AP
But Trump also reinforced his warning that if Hamas didn’t play ball, Israel would have a free hand to continue a war that has killed tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza and left it isolated from many of its traditional allies. Asked by Tapper what would happen if Hamas insists on staying in power, Trump said the group would face “Complete Obliteration!”
Trump also flexed power in another international sphere Sunday, in his escalating campaign against what he claims are drug traffickers operating off Venezuela. Trump has deployed ships, planes and a submarine, and at least four speed boats and crews have been obliterated in strikes. The military action has raised fears that Trump is waging an illegal war not authorized by Congress, which contradicts the powers of the Constitution on presidential action abroad.
The administration told Congress last week that the US was in an “armed conflict” with the drug cartels his administration designated as terrorist organizations, and that smugglers for the cartels are “unlawful combatants.” But the unilateral assumption of authority by the administration is legally questionable at best. And the White House has refused to provide any public evidence to support its claims.
The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed, warned in a statement last week that every American “should be alarmed that the President believes he can wage secret wars against anyone he chooses.”
But Trump was defiant on Sunday, basking in his ability to challenge constitutional checks and balances and international laws designed to prevent such power grabs.
“There are no boats in the water anymore,” he said at the Navy event, raising the prospect of a new escalation that could infringe Venezuelan sovereignty. “Now, we’ll have to start looking about the land, because they’ll be forced to go by land. And let me tell you right now, that’s not going to work out well for them, either.”
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