"The greatest increase in presidential power in the last 100 years"

At 3:29 in the afternoon, the President of the United States sat alone behind the desk in the Oval Office. Only hours earlier, the Supreme Court had handed him one of the most dangerous expansions of presidential power in nearly a century, a decision one justice warned gave the presidency authority "unknown even to the English Crown." And with all of that new power resting beneath his firmly clasped hands, Donald Trump spent fourteen minutes signing an executive order about the right to repair cars, telling a story about people being arrested for fixing their vehicles before admitting, "That's not even believable."

Based on the events of 6-29-2026

The Breakdown:

• In a 6-3 decision in Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court ruled the president can fire the leaders of independent federal agencies for any reason or no reason at all
• The ruling overturned Humphrey's Executor, a 1935 precedent that protected independent agencies for 91 years
• What independent agencies are and why they existed: the FTC, NLRB, FCC, NRC, and others whose leaders could only be removed "for cause"
• Justice Sotomayor read her dissent from the bench, warning the ruling gives the president "a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted"
• Rebecca Slaughter, the fired FTC commissioner, warned of a president who can "reward his friends and punish his enemies with impunity"
• Trump's three Truth Social posts celebrating "the Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years"
• Why there is no longer continuity: every incoming president can now fire every agency head on day one
• What this tells the world about the durability of any agreement or partnership with U.S. agencies
• The danger of installing loyalists at agencies regulating food safety, workplaces, financial markets, and nuclear plants
• A separate 5-4 ruling gave Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook due process protection, carving out a Fed exception
• Why Sotomayor called the reasoning "a half-baked theory of executive power"
• In Watson v. RNC, a 5-4 opinion by Barrett protected states counting mail-in ballots postmarked on time, a genuine victory for November
• Trump calling that ruling "a tremendous loss" and naming five Republican senators as "Hold Outs"
• The Court declined to hear Trump's E. Jean Carroll appeal, leaving the finding that he sexually abused her intact
• Trump asked whether he would sign the bipartisan housing bill: "It's a yawn"
• The golden eagle Trump mounted on the White House, and the history of oversized eagle imagery in authoritarian regimes

We are four months and five days from the midterms. Taking back both chambers is about subpoena power, hearings, and building the record for impeachment and removal, of both Trump and Vance. Tonight I am not just warning that we have to move faster. I am saying it as a promise. Donald Trump loves to be the first to do things. He might just be the first president actually removed from office, and his vice president along with him. He has more power today than yesterday. But in four months, the American people speak.

This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

I'm Heather Claney Reese, and you're listening to Hope for America, where every day I bring you the truth about our politics, our country, and the forces trying to destroy them. Together, we cut through the noise, expose the lies, and stay focused on what really matters, fighting for the survival of our country. At 3.20 yesterday afternoon, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, sat alone behind the desk in the Oval Office. There were no cabinet members standing behind him and no Republican lawmakers waiting to praise him or tell him how historic the moment was. Just the President of the United States, dressed in a dark blue suit, a crisp white shirt, and a bright American flag red, I created that color name, tie with an American flag pin fastened neatly to his lapel. Only hours earlier, the Supreme Court had handed him one of the most dangerous expansions of presidential power in nearly a century, a decision one Justice Warren gave the presidency authority, unknown even to the English crown. And with all of that new power resting beneath his firmly clasped hands, Donald Trump spent 14 minutes of his afternoon signing an executive order about the right to repair cars, presenting it as part of his effort to make life more affordable for American families. As he prepared to sign his name, he launched into a story explaining why the order mattered. I mean, think about it. It came to my attention because I noticed they were arresting people for fixing their car. They were arresting people for fixing. That's not even believable. Anyway, so it's right to fix, and I think it's really common sense if somebody wants to fix. Some of these people are better mechanics than the mechanics in the shop. They're telling the mechanics in the shop how to fix their car or their truck. That was Donald Trump talking about something he's probably never done and never thought about since he's always had drivers, I would imagine. Anyways, also Donald Trump inadvertently also let the truth slip out when he said that's not even believable. He was right. It wasn't believable because it wasn't true. Nobody was being arrested for fixing their car. The actual issue involved emissions regulations under the Clean Air Act and automakers restricting access to diagnostic software and repair tools. It was a legitimate consumer rights dispute, a regulatory and licensing matter. But Trump turned it into a story about people being hauled away in handcuffs and then immediately saying his own story was not believable. Right after that, he signed a presidential memorandum to fix a problem he had just invented. And then a reporter asked him about something real, an actual problem. The bipartisan housing affordability bill legislation that Congress spent months negotiating to address one of the most painful financial crises facing American families, housing costs. The bill had bipartisan support and it cleared Congress. Speaker Johnson had sent it to the White House that same day. And when asked whether he would sign it, Donald Trump said this. When I look at the bill, it's a bill. When I look at the Save America Act, it's about saving America. Then he said, it's a yawn. And in that same breath, he said the only legislation that matters is the Save America Act, a bill that would require photo ID and proof of citizenship to vote. It would eliminate most mail in ballots and fundamentally restrict how Americans participate in their own democracy. That is what excites him. Not whether families can afford a place to live, but how much he can restrict the American people's access to vote. Donald Trump spent nearly the entire day writing a wave of celebration, frustration, and self-congratulation. But beneath it all was one undeniable reality. Yesterday morning, the Supreme Court made him the most powerful president in modern American history. In a six to three decision along ideological lines, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump versus Slaughter that the president has the constitutional authority to fire the leaders of independent federal agencies for any reason or for no reason at all. In doing so, the court overturned Humphreys Executor versus United States, a 1935 precedent that had protected independent federal agencies from direct presidential control for 91 years. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion. Justices Sonia Sotomoyar, Elena Kagan, and Katanji Brown Jackson dissented. And it all comes down to what independent agencies are and why they exist. Congress created agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with a specific design. People who run them could only be removed for cause, meaning for conduct, neglect, or failure to perform their duties. Not because a president disagrees with their decisions, or because they ruled against a donor, not because they enforced a regulation that made a powerful person uncomfortable, or because they wouldn't bend to the whim of the president. The entire point was to keep these agencies independent from political pressure so they could do their jobs, protect workers, protect consumers, and share fair competition, oversee nuclear safety, investigate plane crashes, enforce civil rights laws without fear that the president would fire them for doing something he just doesn't like. That protection is now gone. Trump fired two Democratic FTC commissioners, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Badaya, in March of 2025. He did not cite any misconduct. He told them their continued service on the FTC was inconsistent with his administration's priorities. Slaughter challenged the firing. The case went to the Supreme Court, and the court ruled that the president's power to remove executive officials cannot be limited by Congress, overturning 91 years of settled law and fundamentally changing how the federal government operates. Justice Sodomayara read her dissent from the bench, which is something justices do only when they believe a decision is profoundly wrong. She wrote that the court gives the president a power unknown even to the English crown against which the founders revolted, elevating him above his once co-equal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws. She wrote that the founders had never intended to give the president the complete set of powers that the English crown held, let alone more. And she warned, the result is a president who emerges with far greater power than ever before. It is a power, however, that neither the people nor Congress nor the Constitution bestowed upon him. Rebecca Slaughter, the Commissioner Trump fired, said she was very worried about a future where presidents like President Trump can wield this enormous grant of executive power, and that the Supreme Court just handed to him in order to reward his friends and punish his enemies and to do so with impunity. And how did Trump respond? Well, he went straight to True Social at 10.51 in the morning, minutes after the decision, he wrote big win just moments ago at the Supreme Court in the slaughter case confirming presidential power in our country to remove executive branch officers and agency appointees or representatives under Article II. This decision was long sought by United States presidents. It wasn't. Dating all the way back to the 1930s, it is such an honor to be the sitting president who won this historic and unprecedented ruling, one of the most important ever given with respect to presidential powers. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump. At 1124 in the morning, just 30 minutes later, he posted again to show the importance of the slaughter case. President Donald J. Trump. He just couldn't stop. And by 2.40 p.m., he was back at it again. Today's historic slaughter decision by the Supreme Court is the greatest increase in presidential power in the last 100 years. Such a monumental ruling at such an important time. President Donald J. Trump. He was not talking about making agencies work better for the American people. He was talking about presidential power, his power. And he is celebrating it in a way someone celebrates a personal victory, not a public good. And the danger goes far beyond what Trump does with this power tomorrow or next week. Because we need to think about what this ruling tells the rest of the world about the United States of America. Many of these agencies do not just operate domestically. The Federal Trade Commission cooperates with international regulators on trade enforcement. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees safety standards that affect global nuclear policy. The FCC regulates infrastructure that crosses borders. The Consumer Product Safety Commission sets standards that shape international manufacturing. When foreign governments and international partners work with these agencies, they do so because they trust the people running them were chosen for their expertise, not their loyalty to whoever happens to be president at the moment. That trust just evaporated. Because here is what this ruling actually means for the stability of the American government. There is no longer continuity. Every single time we have a presidential election, the incoming president can walk into office and fire every agency head across more than two dozen federal agencies on day one. Not for misconduct and not for incompetence just because they want their own people in those seats. That means that every four years or every eight years, the entire regulatory infrastructure of the United States could be gutted and rebuilt from scratch based on the whims of the political preferences of one person. That is not how a stable democracy operates. This is not how you build the kind of infrastructure trust that keeps markets stable, keeps allies confident, and keeps the machinery of government functioning across administrations. That is how you create a government that lurches from one extreme to another every time power changes hands. And it tells every nation on earth that any agreement, any regulatory partnership, I mean any institutional relationship they have with the United States is only as durable as the current president's mood. And then there is the dimension of this that we cannot even fully see yet because we do not know what Trump will do with this power behind closed doors. He could now install loyalists at every single one of these agencies, not qualified professionals and obviously not career experts, loyalists, people who maybe owe him personally, people who could be paying for the privilege of having that position, people who will do whatever he asks in exchange for the position and power that comes with it. We have already seen how this administration operates. We have seen the contracts, we have seen the deals, we have seen who benefits. Now imagine that pattern applied to the agencies that regulate the safety of our food, fairness of our workplaces, the integrity of our financial markets, the safety of nuclear power plants. We do not know how dangerous this is yet because we have never been in this moment before. No president in the history of this country has held this ability to simply replace the leadership of almost every independent agency with people who only answer to him. Now, in a separate ruling issued at the same time, also written by Justice Roberts, the court ruled five to four, offering some protection to the Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook from being fired without hearings and her ability to defend herself. Justice Kavanaugh crossed over to join the three liberal justices and Roberts, finding that Trump had not given Cook the procedural due process she was entitled to before trying to remove her. The court carved out what amounts to a Federal Reserve exemption, arguing that the Fed occupies a unique constitutional position rooted in a tradition of central bank independence that traces back to Alexander Hamilton and the founding of the Republic. The Fed keeps its independence, everyone else loses theirs. Sotomayar saw the contradiction between the two rulings clearly. She called the majority's reasoning a half-baked theory of executive power that is simultaneously all-encompassing, yet also subject to necessary but undefined exceptions. If the president must have total control over everyone who exercises executive power, why does the Federal Reserve get a pass? And if the Fed is too important to be subjected to political control, then maybe the agencies that protect workers from unsafe conditions, consumers from dangerous products, and communities from nuclear accidents are too important as well. The court is not applying a principle, it is picking favorites. There were two other significant rulings yesterday in Watson versus Republican National Committee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, crossed over to write a five-to-four opinion protecting the right of states to count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked on time. 15 states in the District of Columbia currently allow this. Barrett wrote that Federal Election Day statues say nothing about ballot receipts, and that the court could not add to the words Congress already chose. This was a genuine victory and it matters for November. But Trump's reaction, posted at 11.03 a.m. yesterday, is where the real danger sits. He called it a tremendous loss for voter rights and demanded passage of the Save America Act. He laid out three requirements. All voters must show photo ID, all voters must show proof of citizenship, and no mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military deployment, or travel. Then he called opposition to the bill treasonous, writing that there is only one reason to oppose it: cheating. He described a powerful communist movement taking place in our country, one more dangerous than World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or September 11th. And then he named five Republican senators individually: Lisa Muryowski, Susan Collins, Tom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, and Mitch McConnell, calling them holdouts and Democrats. The court also declined to hear Trump's appeal in the E. Jean Carroll case. The jury's finding that he sexually abused Carol Stanz. His response posted at 11.16 a.m. was to claim that he has never met her, despite a photograph of them together. He called the Adult Survivors Act the legislation New York passed to give sexual assault survivors a path to justice when the Statute of Limitations had expired, a law that was tailor-made to nab him. He wrote that this injustice cannot be allowed to stand. That is the character of the man the Supreme Court empowered. Yesterday. And then came the golden eagle that Trump wants to install on the White House itself. When I originally wrote this post, it appeared to me that it had already been installed, but I later learned that that was an AI version of an image. And that when daylight actually came upon the White House, there was no eagle actually installed. So it looks like he wants to install it. I have no idea who's gifting it to him, but at 8.23 p.m. last night, as the sun was setting over Washington, D.C. on the eve of the country's 250th birthday, the president of the United States of America had posted a photograph, what looked to be a photograph, of a massive golden eagle wingspan of at least seven or eight feet wide, physically mounted on the columns of the White House exterior. Hanging beneath the Truman balcony and the South Lawn, his captioned a golden gift to the White House for its 250th birthday year. And if you are finding this unsettling like I was, then there is a reason. And it is not just the tacky gold color, or that he is, again, adding crap like this to the White House or wants to. Authoritarian regimes throughout history have used oversized eagle imagery on government buildings as a physical assertion of state power. The Roman Empire carried theirs at the head of every legion. The Nazi regime adopted the Reich Sodler, hope I'm pronouncing that right, massive metallic eagles with fully spread wings and mounted them on buildings, rally stages, and government offices. Albert Speer designed entire architectural environments around these symbols. The scale was always deliberate. The state is fast, the state is permanent, the state is watching. What Trump mounted or wanted to mount on the White House yesterday mirrors that visual language almost exactly. Frontal, symmetrical, wings horizontal, talons gripping a central emblem. We are four months and four days from the midterm elections. Everything that happened yesterday, the ruling, the eagle, the threats, the dismissal of struggling families, all of it continues unchecked unless we change who holds the power of oversight in Congress. Taking back both chambers is not just about limiting Trump's rule. It is about subpoena power. It is about hearings. It is about getting to the bottom of everything this administration has been hiding, the Board of Peace, the Epstein files, the contracts, the firings, the abuse of power that has been piling up with no one in a position of power willing to investigate. It is about building the evidentiary, a record of impeachment and removal. Not just of Trump, but of fans as well, both of them. All day I spent thinking about how we are just four months away from November. And for the first time in a while, I'm not just saying that as a warning that we have got to move faster. I'm saying it differently. I'm saying it as a promise. There is a very real chance that in four months we send a signal so loud it cannot be ignored. And when we do, the dominoes start falling. The enablers who have been holding the line for Trump because it was politically convenient will start to think about jumping ship because the politics will have changed. The donors who have kept funding the machinery will think about the future of where their money goes a little more carefully. The Republicans who stayed silent will suddenly find their voices, and then just a couple of months after that, the new Congress is seated. And that is when everything changes. Donald Trump loves to be the first to do things. He brags about it constantly. Well, he might just be the first president actually removed from office, and his vice president along with him. But we are closing in on what could be the last six months of his uncontrolled reign of terror. He has more power today than he had a couple days ago. But in four months, the American people speak. And that is why I still have hope for America and you should too. And remember, no matter how dark the days get, I will be here every single day, and together we will always find hope for America. I'll see you tomorrow.