Presidential executive orders—from FDR’s 1940s-era WPA and internment camps to Trump’s 2025 surge of over 100—now exceed 13,000, bypassing Congress amid crises like the Great Depression or COVID. Executive agreements, often ignored by courts, further sidestep oversight, while the War Powers Resolution of 1973 was undermined by Reagan and Clinton. Media allies like Benny Johnson and Cat Turd amplify unilateral power, fueling public demand for swift action that erodes checks and balances, pushing the economy toward instability. [Automatically generated summary]
An executive order isn't a law, but it can carry the weight of one.
An executive order is something the president issues without consultation or permission from Congress.
They are, however, enforced like laws and are subject to judicial review by the court system to make sure they're within the limits of the Constitution.
That means the courts have the power to invalidate any executive decisions that they determine are an overreach of the president trying to assert power.
So this one is going to be about the rise of the presidency and the executive branch.
Okay.
So here's the thing.
We all know we've had these crazy things happening like the no kings protest and years people about the overreach of branch and about it is, you know, which side of the aisle it is.
The founding father didn't want another king.
And whatever Trump, I still, you know, I don't, I have my own opinions, but overall, I did vote for him.
So, you know, ultimately, the founders, they didn't want another king and they wanted a leader who could act fast, but never rule alone, which is why we had the first government that built the presidency strong enough, but just weak enough in order for us to, in order for them to be stopped.
So we're going to look at this first picture here.
This is going to be the second article in the Constitution that lays out the executive branch.
And I'll do like a quick summary.
We're not going to read all of this, but this gives you a breakdown of what the founding fathers had intended for this.
Clause one, there shall be an executive branch of the government.
This power for this branch is held by a president of the United States.
His term of office will be four years, and so will the term of the vice president.
This is how he will be elected.
Clause two, each state will have a number of electors to choose the president.
The number of electors for a state is equal to the total number of senators and representatives the state has in Congress.
Senators and representatives may not be electors.
Also, no one who holds an office of trust or profit with the United States government may be an elector.
This is interesting because like everyone's like, oh, I know this.
The president's in there for four years.
Let's actually read what this says.
Even if it's a little bit on kind of the boring side, it's still very important for us to go through and know.
Only a person who is born in the United States, sorry, Ted Cruz, may become president of the United States.
The president must be 35 years of age or older.
He must have lived inside the United States for at least 14 years.
Clause six, the vice president shall have the powers of the president and do the president's jobs in case the president is removed from office.
Hello, JD, or he dies or resigns or is unable to do the job.
Congress may make a law saying we shall do the president's job and have his powers in case both the president and vice president are removed from office, die or resign or aren't able to do the job.
The person shall act as president until the president is able to do the job or the vice president is able to serve as president or until a new president is elected.
Clause eight, the president shall take an oath of office before he takes over his job.
That's the oath.
President should be in charge of the army, supreme, like commander in chief.
President shall have the power to make treaties.
President shall appoint ambassadors.
Okay, it's good.
I didn't know like the letter of the law of all that stuff.
Yeah, so I mean, you've covered some of them, but the overall thing that people need to understand, what's laid out, president is commander-in-chief.
They declare, they direct military, but Congress is actually the one that declares war.
They have the pardons and reprieves so they can forgive or delay punishment.
A reprieve is a little bit different than a pardon.
A reprieve, it's not used as much, but essentially, like if somebody's on death row, a president can come in and say, okay, well, you know, we can extend that out so that the death penalty doesn't happen within the timeframe, but it doesn't exonerate them of the crime.
It just delays it.
You've got treaties and appointments, negotiations.
You know, they are doing that, but the Senate's approval for those treaties.
State of the Union, they report to Congress and they recommend action.
Veto power, that's a very big one where they can block bills, but then Congress, if they get enough votes, can override that.
You've got, you know, take care clause, which they must faithfully enforce the laws.
And you have hit the nail on the head with that one.
But on the left side, pay attention to this list because these are the things that the tools that the president is able to use these days.
So you have what's called the bully pulpit.
Not a lot of people talk about this, but it's essentially like the direct communication that became power.
So like from FDRs, fireside chats to social media, presidents can use Congress, can use the social media to essentially pressure Congress and shape opinion because they have the ability to speak out to the audience.
And so, you know, it's really about whatever the president wants to talk about, especially with the agenda setting.
The president can decide what the country talks about.
They have the ability to form the state of the union and give daily news cycles and the national congress.
I mean, and they're able to set the national conversation before Congress even acts on something.
And even more than that, now we've seen that applied to crypto and like things like the global market.
You know, it's a whole new dimension to it that was never really possible before because our economy is so stock market and market based, ultimately, the president is able to go out there and just move things around.
Guys, there's hundreds of congressional people and most people don't know who they are and they don't know.
They don't really have social media presence.
So ultimately, people go to get their news on what's going to happen in the government from the executive branch.
And it's basically whatever he says or whatever he tweets out on Truth Social and not just Trump, but all presidents, people pay attention for these things.
And that's one of the things that they use for power.
So another thing is, is they are the de facto leader of their party, right?
So the president becomes the commander and center for both political parties.
So they're really in charge of that fundraising, endorsements, messaging.
And the biggest thing is that party loyalty.
So even though you have Congress, they still get in line because the president is ultimately the leader of that party.
And if you have both the House and the Senate, what can you do?
And this is why, you know, like European countries, they have a parliamentary government and they have a bunch of major and minor parties and the seats are all kind of sprinkled around.
But here in America, the legislative is supposed to be a check on the executive.
But the way it ends up working out, like you're describing, is you have the party leader.
And as long as the party has the majority, there is no check or balance.
And the thing that people don't realize is the president behind closed doors, he's going when a vote goes to the floor that he wants passed, he's making calls to other people.
He's making calls to this representative.
Oh, you're not going to vote for us?
Well, you can kiss Jimmy going to college.
You know, there's things like that that happen behind the scenes that people don't see.
And there's the aggression because everyone is scared of, you know, the president has some real power when it comes to making decisions from the cabinet perspective as well as different agencies.
So the last one is the executive agreements.
Now, look at that right side of the chart there.
You can see that top portion, that orange is what we were paying attention to.
And so essentially what an executive agreement is, they deal with another country and essentially skip Congress.
And essentially, it acts as almost like it covers defense, trade, environment.
You know, it can all be directly signed by the president.
And so think of it as like a mini treaty, essentially.
This is the whole problem with government is that past presidents and past administrations and past legislative bodies, they make these deals that have, you know, decades and decades and decades long ramifications.
It's like, well, we were trying to do this, but now we're trying to do this other thing.
The thing that is the biggest of them all is the executive order, right?
Executive order is essentially, you know, what most presidents have used in order to set the standard for whatever things that they want.
As you can see on this chart, guys, this is the executive orders within the first hundred days of office.
Now, Trump really set a record with this guy.
Okay.
When he came in in 2025, I think the number was something crazy.
I don't remember what the exact number, but I think it was over 100 executive orders.
Now, he didn't pass as many as FDR, but he enacted them very, very quickly.
And you look at the first time in 2017, he didn't really try to push the needle too much.
I think he was just focused on doing things and figuring things out.
But let's watch this clip that shows us how the executive orders, what they are, how they work, because it's nice to understand what they actually are because we don't really talk about these things.
And everyone kind of spews out the word executive order.
And they don't actually really dive into what is that ability and what is it laid out in the Constitution.
So let's pull up the clip number one there.
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The framers of the American Constitution made the power of the executive order available to the executive branch.
But what exactly is this tool?
How does it work?
And what is the extent of its power?
Well, an executive order isn't a law, but it can carry the weight of one.
Passing laws involves a fairly lengthy process.
First, a member of Congress proposes a piece of legislation in the form of a bill.
After many committees and revisions, if the bill is approved by a majority of votes in Congress, that is, both the House and Senate, the bill is then sent to the president for signature.
If the president signs the bill, it then becomes a law.
An executive order, on the other hand, is something the president issues without consultation or permission from Congress.
They are, however, enforced like laws and are subject to judicial review by the court system to make sure they're within the limits of the Constitution.
That means the courts have the power to invalidate any executive decisions that they determine are an overreach of the president trying to assert power.
Sometimes a president feels the need to exert power without working with Congress.
And in times of crisis, quick decisions can be justified.
But most executive orders are not responses to emergencies.
They're often directed towards agencies in the federal government in order to expand or monitor their power.
Others determine the extent to which legislation should be enforced.
And sometimes a president may use an executive order to clarify and help implement a policy that needs to be easily defined.
Some of the most famous executive orders have changed the course of American history.
FDR issued an executive order to establish the Works Progress Administration, which helped build thousands of roads, bridges, and parks throughout the country.
The U.S. Constitution is somewhat ambiguous on the extent of the president's power.
And that's resulted in executive orders expanding over time.
For instance, since Lyndon Johnson, presidents have begun issuing orders to create faith-based initiatives, establish federal agencies, and remove barriers for scientific research.
There are checks and balances in the U.S. Congress can pass laws.
And the amount of like infrastructure that you need for that.
I don't even know how we did it.
But that 3,700 amount is a real number, guys.
FDR, you know, he became president during the Great Depression.
So this was when like Congress was frozen and they had all of these programs and, you know, they weren't able to pass things.
So he comes in and he's like, you know what?
I'm just going to start passing executive orders.
And also, he also did the same thing during later during World War II.
Now he did die very early on, but he served four terms, guys.
And this was before the two-term law was passed.
But he was our president for like over 12 years.
Right.
So, you know, that spike is just absolutely insane.
But it just really goes to show, you know, the thing about Congress is, you know, that process where you got to get a bill in front of the people, go through the committee.
But the whole point of that is it takes forever for laws to get passed.
Right.
So the reaction time from when you need, you know, relief money, like I understand the concept of what they were trying to do with the presidency of like, okay, somebody needs to be able to act quickly and we need to not take, you know, going through the T's and C's and taking, you know, six months to solve an issue that needs to be solved like tomorrow, right?
But then it just kind of, you know, they say, oh, there's a check on the executive orders, but do you know you still have to go through the same voting process and have a majority rule against that executive order, which also takes forever, not to mention Supreme Court, right?
And it can take even a longer time for them to hear something because it'll go to a lower court first and then it's got to go through the whole process.
And that's how the whole game is played.
So even if something is struck down or deemed illegal, it takes months and months to do it.
And at the point of, you know, the thing being a rapid response to some issue or problem that's been created, the deed's already been done.
Overwhelming the system, and that's what we look at with this executive order per day thing.
You know, we've got massive numbers of them before, but you know, before FDR, Great Depression, a whole lot of governmental agencies being set up, including the intelligence agencies.
That makes sense for that time period.
But he's just kind of flooding the zone, as they say.
He's making it so, hey, these courts, you're going to get me with them.
I don't think so.
I'm going to do so much stuff that there's no possible way for you to even do anything about this since it's almost out of time.
And here's the thing: there's so many that are coming out with each president.
You guys got to understand, you don't hear about 99% of the executive orders that are released, right?
So you only hear about the really controversial ones, but you don't hear about the ones that are a little hush-hush under the table that just passed something.
Now, there are some really good ones.
You know, like Clinton did one in the 90s, which allowed people who had medical care from the government, they used to have to go to these like shitty, basically like parenthood, parenthood, you know, just for welfare and minorities.
They couldn't go to the ones that actually had good doctors.
And so he passed an executive order that allowed, like, I was part of that program.
Like, I was able to go to like the pediatrics that was around the corner from my house.
That was a really good one because of something executive order.
So I can't whack at the whole system, but it's just gotten out of control.
Yeah, this is going to be the next one that we're going to go.
Let's watch the second video, which is commander-in-chief was never supposed to be allowed to declare war without Congress, but we've been doing a lot of these little mini, mini escapades.
Richard Nixon was president of the United States, and U.S. troops had been fighting in Vietnam for nearly 18 years, all without an official declaration of war.
This prompted Congress to pass the War Powers Resolution of 1973, preventing any future president from involving the U.S. in an undeclared war.
Congress had traditionally declared war or authorized the president to use military force against enemies beyond its borders, a power granted exclusively to them by Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.
The War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, these were all declared by Congress.
But after World War II, things got a bit fuzzy.
Some presidents started taking military liberties with their role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, a power also granted by the Constitution.
In 1950, President Harry Truman sent U.S. troops to help defend South Korea against North Korean invaders.
He called it a police action.
So technically, it wasn't a war.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy sent supplies and military advisors to South Vietnam.
Less than a year later, U.S. troops were fighting in the Vietnam War, including in the Gulf of Tonkin, all without that official declaration.
And then in 1969, President Richard Nixon began bombing Cambodia in secret, hiding missions from both Congress and the American people.
It took more than a year for this information to leave to the public.
And it wasn't until 1973 that Congress ordered an immediate end to the bombing raids.
But at this point, Congress realized more needed to be done to check the power of the president when it came to war.
So on November 7th, 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution.
The idea was to ensure that Congress and the president agreed on war actions before committing troops into hostile situations.
There are a few key parts to the war powers resolution.
First, the president must consult and report to Congress before sending troops overseas, though he or she can initiate sending troops in the case of an attack.
Second, if the president initiates a hostile action, it can only last for 60 days plus a 30-day withdrawal period.
Then, Congress has to vote on whether it can continue, unless Congress can't meet because of an attack on the U.S. mainland.
And finally, if forces have been deployed that aren't acting on a declaration of war, the president must remove them at direction of Congress.
Although the War Powers Resolution had broad bipartisan support, it didn't pass without a fight.
After they voted to pass the bill, President Nixon vetoed it.
Nixon argued that it violated the constitutional powers of the president and that the only way to limit the president's role as commander-in-chief would be to amend the Constitution itself.
But Congress voted again and overrode the veto.
The war powers resolution became law.
Despite the resolution, presidents in Congress have still been at odds when it comes to military action.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan deployed several U.S. military advisors to El Salvador without reporting to Congress.
Some members of Congress filed a federal lawsuit, but the court dismissed the case.
In the 90s, President Bill Clinton sent forces to Kosovo, and troops remained there for more than the 60-day limit.
This resulted in another lawsuit from members of Congress, but once more, the federal court refused to intervene.
So while the war powers resolution has limited the president's ability to send troops overseas, the branches of government still wrestle over their powers, which is exactly what the nation's founders intended.
I think what's happened now is we fucked around and we found out because it's up to the president pretty much unilaterally now to decide what happens.
And that war powers act, I guess, you know, maybe we can't do something directly, but we can pass the money to get the thing through and just have other people do it.
Right.
So that's where we're at now.
And, you know, I wonder like if he'll issue an executive order regarding the Venezuela situation for, you know, the targeted military objective.
The emergency of the drugs, it's killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
We have to go in and I have the authority to go in, but it's going to be a limited thing.
And then we get into a full war type situation and then Trump literally just throws his hands up and goes, I didn't know it was going to happen like this.
Well, I take your point and it makes a lot of sense to me.
Ultimately, we're living in an age of access journalism, never before imagined, where you're able to take like these cable news hosts or, you know, kind of just like even the people on Twitter, people that got those Epstein files that weren't real.
You're able to take them and then essentially make them a part of the political party.
When in fact, ultimately, it's all about the checks and balances on government.
And the people that are supposed to cover such news are just, you know, high-fiving and clapping and applauding for the current situation that's going on.
You know, media and journalism in this country has always been controlled to a degree and the government's always been heavily involved in that.
But living in an age where people consider reality to be what's on the phone and considering the people that are posting all the time are paid to post, not necessarily in money, but in access to the team, the Cool Kids Club.
Yeah, it's one big circle jerk because here's the thing.
No matter which side you're on, you know, if you go where the power is, there's always some monetary compensation on the back end or some type of power that comes from just being associated.
Because imagine the rooms that Benny Johnson is in now, right?
And, you know, the cable news people have more honor and nobility than those people because at least the cable news is like, I'm an institution and I support XYZ.
But then you literally got a dude like Cat Turd on his phone.
And just because he can farm engagement money, just because he can get paid off of what he posts, the beauty of it is the president doesn't even have to give him any benefit because he's benefiting off of the engagement of the president.
And this is why the Trump time is so unique.
And I think we're going to look back at this time in like half a decade or a decade and be like, wow, that was real magic in the air because these things that are going on, they won't exist in the time of JD Rubio, AOC Bernie.
But at the end of the day, most people aren't like you in that regard.
Most people are very passionate one way or the other about the dude.
And me personally, I'm sick of the dude.
I wish the dude would do his job and shut up and go away.
But we're stuck with what we have now.
But my point being, someone like Cat Turd that's probably making this speculation, maybe like high hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of dollars off of his association, which is being the pro-Trump guy, when the MAGA goes away, they'll try to revive it.
They'll try to keep it the same, but they're going to run just a MA-flavored campaign with an establishment Republican, and people are going to eat it up and they're going to love it.
And they're going to be like, this is the same thing for a thousand years.
And that's what, that's the deal Trump made is he said, hey, as long as I get to be the leader of this political party and I take it over and I win, whatever that means, not the country winning, not Americans winning, not American prices going down.
If I can win and just be the guy that everyone likes now because I'm a part of the system and the system accepts me, he really is the perfect fit for it.
And the thing about the whole aspect of everything when it comes to the presidency and the power that they're given, a lot of it comes down to also the public, too.
We're also partly responsible for giving up power because Americans expect presidents to fix everything.