The media tries to say that President Trump has acted in defiance of the Constitution, however, in almost all of those cases it was a matter of Trump using an Executive order to reverse an Obama EO.
A prime example is DACA. Obama used EOs to create both DACA and DAPA. DAPA has already worked its way through the courts and it was found to be unconstitutional because, while the president can decide how to enforce the laws, he cannot bestow benefits not authorized by Congress, such as work permits and Social Security cards. DACA will soon be decided at the Supreme Court.
On Friday, Trump pointed out that DACA was unconstitutional — and that if the Supreme Court disagreed, by rejecting the Trump administration’s appeal of the lower court’s decision, it would be giving him potentially unlimited power (emphasis added):
We discussed [DACA] a long time ago … You remember those discussions. But where it really ended is when the judge ruled against [the cancelation of DACA]. And it was — I said, as soon as that happened, ’cause that was a shocking decision, it was shocking to the Democrats and it was more shocking to the Republicans. It was an incorrect decision, it was a political decision made by a judge — and I know a lot of people don’t like when I say it, but try going there sometime to the Ninth Circuit and try winning a case.
Not easy. Everybody files right in the Ninth Circuit. The fact is, it was a terrible decision, and incorrect decision. When that decision came down, when that judge ruled the way he ruled, I said, as soon as I heard it, I said, “You know what’s going to happen? We’re never going to hear from them again.” And that’s exactly — that’s what broke up the DACA deal. Yes, we had a pathway [to citizenship], we had many things — that was getting close to being a deal. … we were getting close. And I said as soon as that decision came down, that incorrect and horrible decision — I mean, there’s been a number of them made lately — but I said, “You’ll never hear from them again.” I called up.
I said, “Hi, it’s President Trump. What is going on?” They say,”President trump?” We don’t know who that is.” It was over. The deal was over. That’s what killed the DACA deal. It was nothing else. It was the judge’s decision. And if the Supreme Court does what, really, everyone thinks from a legal standpoint it should be doing — if they don’t allow the President of the United States, which is me also, because if President Obama is allowed to do that, I’m allowed to do it also. Can you imagine? If the Supreme Court overrules that wrong executive order [by Obama], we’ll have a deal very quickly on DACA and other things.
And the Democrats want that and so do we. But once he ruled that way, it was something you couldn’t really negotiate.
Trump is right, if DACA were upheld by SCOTUS, it would mean he could write laws with Executive Orders. What a nightmare that would be for liberals.