MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The United States is currently dealing with multiple national emergencies all at once, according to President Trump. He says there is a national emergency at the southern border, also an energy emergency, also an economic emergency, to name a few. The president has wielded these to enact some of his most wide-reaching policies - policies from pushing fossil fuel production, to trying to complete the border wall with Mexico, to setting sweeping tariffs. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf has been following this. She is with me now. Hi, Kat.
KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
KELLY: I want you to start big before we zoom in and you give us some details. When a president declares a national emergency, it triggers certain powers. How's it work?
LONSDORF: Yeah. So a president can declare a national emergency at any time without approval from Congress, and that declaration allows presidents to temporarily enhance their executive powers. The idea is that passing laws through Congress is too slow in rare moments of crisis and the president needs the flexibility to act quickly and send resources where they're needed. But what constitutes an emergency has never been defined by law, creating a system of trust around the president to be able to identify an emergency. You know, essentially, it's an emergency if the president says it is.
KELLY: Worth pointing out, plenty of presidents have said it was. President Trump is not the first president by any stretch to invoke emergency powers.
LONSDORF: Right.
KELLY: Is there something unique, unusual, about the way he is doing it?
LONSDORF: Yeah, so you're right. Presidents have traditionally relied on emergency powers in many different situations. They've used emergency powers for things like freezing assets or imposing sanctions on specific foreign entities or in times of notable crisis, like after the 9/11 attacks with George W. Bush, or the COVID pandemic - that was a national emergency declared by Trump in his first term and later ended by Biden. But there are two notable ways that Trump is using emergency powers now. First, the rate at which he's using them, and second, what he's using them for.
So for the rate, Trump has declared eight national emergencies in his first 100 days in office in this term. That's more than any other modern president has done in that same time period. For comparison, Biden declared 11 over his whole four-year term. Obama declared 12 in his eight years. George W. Bush declared 14 in his two terms.
KELLY: And just to sum up again, Trump - eight in the first hundred days. OK, go on.
LONSDORF: Exactly. You know, and I should say, the White House defends Trump's use of emergency powers, saying that he is rightfully using them to quickly, quote, "fix the many catastrophes he inherited from Joe Biden."
KELLY: Yeah. OK, stay there 'cause you just told us about the rate. The other piece of that - the what Trump is actually using these emergency powers for - what's that?
LONSDORF: Yeah. So constitutional experts say Trump seems to be primarily using emergencies to try to carry out his domestic priorities more quickly than trying to pass laws through Congress, which is the traditional constitutional check on executive power. It's a pattern that started in Trump's first term, when he declared a national emergency to help fund the southern border wall after Congress didn't approve the full amount. You might remember that.
KELLY: I do.
LONSDORF: That move triggered lawsuits, but the cases didn't reach the Supreme Court before Biden took office and overrode that emergency. And then, you know, Biden continued that pattern when he used emergency powers to forgive student loan debt after Congress blocked his plan. That was ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court.
KELLY: OK, so this is important. The courts, up to and including the Supreme Court, as you're noting, they represent a check on this kind of presidential power. You just told us how it worked in the first term. What about this second term? Where do legal challenges now stand?
LONSDORF: Yeah, there have been many legal challenges, and some courts have ruled that Trump is exceeding his power, particularly in regard to tariffs. Appeals for that are ongoing. Challenges to Trump's emergency orders have yet to reach the Supreme Court, but it seems likely that some of them will. And that's what some legal experts I've talked to are really worried about - how this all could play out in the Supreme Court, especially if the court rules in favor of the administration.
KELLY: Say more about that. Why are they really worried?
LONSDORF: Well, some legal experts worry if the courts side with the administration it could lead to an upending of the constitutional balance of power - essentially, give the presidency more executive power and take away power from Congress. I talked to Kim Scheppele. She's a professor at Princeton University and a scholar on emergency powers.
KIM SCHEPPELE: Frankly, you know, I mostly study the fall of democracies in other places, and it's through this expansion of unlimited executive power. That's the path I'm worried we're on.
LONSDORF: Other legal experts I talked to were less certain how the Supreme Court would rule on something like this, but they all told me they were certainly watching it for this reason.
KELLY: NPR's Kat Lonsdorf, thank you for watching it so closely.
LONSDORF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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