America’s Supreme Court was right to expand presidential power As undesirable as an imperial executive is, the court read the constitution correctly, argues Sai Prakash July 2nd 2026 THE DECISION was as unforeseen as a hot and humid Washington summer. On June 29th the Supreme Court, in Trump v Slaughter, struck down the congressionally imposed for-cause removal protections for commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Last September, the court had foreshadowed this when it granted the Trump administration’s request for an emergency motion to bar an ousted commissioner from resuming her duties. Many commentators lament the humbling of the FTC and the other so-called independent agencies. They misread the constitution and the decision’s real-
world effects. The court was belatedly correcting its own error, and the independence of these agencies was more imagined than real. Congress lacks constitutional power to restrict the president’s removal of officers enforcing the law, and the “independent agencies” have not been meaningfully independent for decades. Trump v Slaughter arose because President Donald Trump did what he was most famous for before turning to politics: he fired people. In March 2025 Mr Trump removed Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, the Democratic commissioners of the FTC. The Federal Trade Commission Act purported to limit the president’s removal power to “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office”, but Mr Trump had not alleged, much less proven, any of those causes. Ms Slaughter sued in federal court and secured an order that in effect reinstated her. Mr Trump eventually secured relief from the Supreme Court, a stay of the district court’s order in favour of Ms Slaughter. One reason why some regard Slaughter as extraordinary is that in 1935, in a case called Humprey’s Executor v United States, the court had upheld these precise restrictions on the removal of the Federal Trade commissioners. Slaughter inters Humphrey’s, expressly overruling it. But anyone who has been paying attention knows that the Supreme Court has been undercutting Humphrey’s for more than a decade: narrowing it, issuing pronouncements inconsistent with it and generally calling it into question. Long before Slaughter, the current court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, was openly hostile to removal restrictions. Opposition to this week’s decision relies on two arguments: that the court got the constitution wrong, and that the ruling will adversely affect agency decision-making. The first contention is misplaced. As Alexander Hamilton put it, the constitution makes the president the “constitutional executor” of the law and empowers him to oversee and, if need be, remove officers who do not honour his orders and agenda. The president has constitutional powers over the execution of the law; the commissioners do not. Indeed, James Madison famously said: “I conceive that if any power whatsoever is in its nature executive it is the power of appointing, overseeing, and controlling those who execute the laws.” The FTC’s commissioners are certainly executing federal laws and the president may control and remove them.
Furthermore, Congress lacks the constitutional power to constrain the president’s removal power over executive officers, just as it lacks the constitutional authority to limit the veto or pardon powers. Specifically, the constitution nowhere authorises Congress to refashion the separation of powers that the constitution establishes. So, if the removal of executive officers is an executive power, if the commissioners are executive officers enforcing the law, and if Congress lacks the power to impose removal restrictions, the federal law purporting to protect the commissioners from removal by the president is unconstitutional. That is why Slaughter was right to say: “Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him.” Turn to the second point, about decision-making. Independent agencies have long been less independent than the name or the lore suggests. Although many of their commissioners have statutory terms of five years or more, commissioners don’t typically serve a full term. This quicker turnover means presidents usually appoint new commissioners more frequently than one might suppose. Relatedly, presidents appoint commissioners who are party loyalists and who often seek further offices, appointed or elected. In that context, it pays to be a team player and advance the party’s agenda. But doesn’t the ability to fire commissioners mark a big change? Not really. The old regime meant that a president controlled the independent agencies for about four (or eight) years, with that control beginning one or two years into his first term and extending one or two years into the term of a new president from the other party. The shift to at-will removal makes the president’s command of the agency correspond to his actual time in office. Slaughter effects a time-shift in presidential control. As soon as the incumbent president secures a party majority within an “independent agency”, through a combination of holdover appointees and new appointments, the commission works almost hand-in-glove with his administration. Indeed, it is telling that two of the FTC’s sitting commissioners joined Mr Trump’s briefs arguing that the president may fire them and their colleagues without cause. Democratic commissioners have proven no less loyal to Democratic administrations: during Joe Biden’s presidency, for instance, the FTC worked closely with the White House on
antitrust. The vaunted independence of these agencies has long been more fiction than fact. Slaughter arrives at a fraught time. Many are fearful of expanding executive power. They are right to be apprehensive: recent presidents have shown disdain for the constitution and Congress. Waging wars, eliminating agencies, refusing to spend appropriated funds, spending where there is no appropriation, forgiving billions in student debts, destroying the Department of Education, granting millions of aliens a legal status and refusing to enforce congressional laws—these and countless other presidential actions have made mincemeat of the separation of powers, breeding widespread cynicism. The more presidents stretch their own powers, the more their successors press to further distend the office. Every president is ready to cite the constitutional excesses of his predecessor as justification for his own legal stretches. It is time to return to an era where Congress makes laws and presidents do not write and rewrite them. Slaughter is not the cause of the appalling expansion of presidential power. Rather, it rests on a correct reading of the constitution and of America’s separation of powers. Yet it does nothing to bring the nation closer to constitutional normality, to dethrone the imperial executive. ■ Sai Prakash is the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and a Miller Centre Senior Fellow at the University of Virginia. For an opposing view on Trump v Slaughter, read the guest essay by Victoria Nourse. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//by-invitation/2026/06/29/americas-supreme-court-was- right-to-expand-presidential-power
Essay America’s Wrecking-ball revolution Hope, backlash and the battle for America What remains of the city upon the hill?
America’s Wrecking-ball revolution The architects of the post-war order are tearing it down. Edward Carr asks what will rise from the rubble July 2nd 2026 AS IT CELEBRATES the 250th anniversary of its independence, the United States is once again in a state of rebellion. This time the revolution is against the world America itself created. Instead of George III and his parliament in far-off London, the enemies of this Wrecking-ball revolution are the global institutions, alliances and system of values that America built to keep liberty safe after the defeat of fascism in 1945. Many Republicans, as well as some on the left, believe these structures impose burdens that Americans should be no more willing to tolerate than they were the Stamp Act of 1765.
A year into his second term Donald Trump dumped 66 international bodies, including 31 UN agencies, like overtaxed crates of tea. Six months later the wrecking ball is still in full swing. Last month Mr Trump proposed a new round of sweeping tariffs as part of a campaign against multilateral trade. If he strikes Cuba, it will be the eighth time he has used military force since January 2025. He will not seek approval from Congress or the UN Security Council. Unlike previous presidents, he will not claim any rationale under international law. Listen to the talk of secession. In his confirmation hearing before becoming secretary of state, Marco Rubio declared that “the post-war global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us.” Steve Bannon rejoices that the rules-based order has been tossed into “the dustbin of history”. Speaking for allies who feel attacked and betrayed, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, laments that “the West as we know it no longer exists.” You might think the billionaire son of a property developer would make an unlikely revolutionary. Mr Trump is uninterested in ideas. He has no ideals nor any higher purpose. The war in Iran demonstrates his lack of grand strategy. But that vacuum is precisely what equips him to tear down the old order. An opportunist with an insatiable ego, he cares nothing for the institutions that were entrusted to him. Instead he wants to erect a monument to his own version of American greatness and put his name on it. And the time is right. Every scheme for organising geopolitics eventually faces a shift in the balance of power or a crisis of legitimacy. This revolution hits one beset by both. Its rival China, Americans now believe, will never share the universal values America used to stand for. So what good is a system centred on them? And if America, instead of investing in a peaceful world, extracts what it can from a violent one, why should others not do the same? It is too early to say for sure where this will lead; revolutions follow logics of their own creation. But something precious lies broken. In his inaugural