By Dan Stark 
UConn Jour­nal­ism

The impacts so far have reached into civil­ian life in Con­necti­cut and across the coun­try. 

Schools have faced threats of fund­ing loss if they don’t com­ply with new diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion poli­cies. 

An anti-sci­ence agen­da has under­mined fed­er­al pub­lic health guide­lines as dereg­u­la­tion has weak­ened envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tions. 

Renew­able ener­gy projects, includ­ing some in Con­necti­cut, have been stalled. 

Non-prof­it groups, the­aters and food pantries in Con­necti­cut and across the coun­try have lost fed­er­al fund­ing. 

Depor­ta­tions have dra­mat­i­cal­ly ramped up and pro­tec­tions for refugees have been can­celed. 

Trans­gen­der Amer­i­cans have seen their iden­ti­ties chal­lenged and inter­na­tion­al stu­dents have had their actions scru­ti­nized.

 Pub­lic and pri­vate uni­ver­si­ties, includ­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut, have lost mil­lions of dol­lars in research grants as the admin­is­tra­tion seeks to reshape what is stud­ied and taught amid a broad­er attempt to shape pub­lic his­to­ry.  

Behind this is a pres­i­dent who has been embold­ened to expand the pow­er of the exec­u­tive branch. Trump has wres­tled the pow­er of the purse away from the leg­isla­tive branch by elim­i­nat­ing agen­cies and pro­grams approved by Con­gress. He has tak­en con­trol over inde­pen­dent reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies, tried to elim­i­nate agen­cies he dis­fa­vors like the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and imposed puri­ty tests on fed­er­al work­ers. He has deployed the Nation­al Guard to patrol Demo­c­rat-led cities and can­celled bil­lions in fund­ing to blue states. He has called for the jail­ing of Demo­c­ra­t­ic offi­cials and for the Jus­tice Depart­ment to pun­ish his ene­mies. News out­lets have been barred from the White House and tele­vi­sion net­works have had their broad­cast licens­es threat­ened. 

These actions have occurred at a greater scale and pace than dur­ing Trump’s first term. 

“A dif­fer­ence between a sec­ond and first term is a lev­el of sophis­ti­ca­tion and kind of strate­gic plan­ning,” said Mitchel Sol­len­berg­er, a polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan-Dear­born who has researched on exec­u­tive pow­er. “There’s inten­tion­al­i­ty in Trump 2.0 that you didn’t see with Trump 1.0, so there’s much more focus on uni­lat­er­al exec­u­tive action in Trump 2.0 than 1.0.” 

Trump’s actions have not gone unchal­lenged. Mil­lions of peo­ple have gath­ered across the coun­try for “No Kings” protests through­out the year, with the Octo­ber events mark­ing the biggest protests seen in the U.S. since Earth Day in 1970. 

Groups like the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union of Con­necti­cut have filed law­suits on behalf of those impact­ed while coali­tions of states have band­ed togeth­er to fight back against Trump’s actions.  

Con­necti­cut Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Tong, a Demo­c­rat and first-gen­er­a­tion Amer­i­can, has been one of the most aggres­sive, join­ing in more than three dozen legal chal­lenges against the admin­is­tra­tion. Tong said these law­suits aren’t root­ed in par­ti­san bias but were nec­es­sary because the attor­neys gen­er­al view Trump’s actions as threats to the sov­er­eign­ty of their states and the lives of their cit­i­zens.  

“We didn’t ask for this,” Tong said. States were com­pelled to sue because of “offens­es to the states, to the Con­sti­tu­tion, to our rule of law and the guardrails. All of these things have been so threat­ened in such a pro­found way that we’ve had to act.” 

Separation of Powers and the Power of the Purse 

Many of the Trump administration’s expan­sions of exec­u­tive pow­er have come from its attempt to seize spend­ing pow­er from Con­gress, known as the “pow­er of the purse.” This has occurred through can­celling research grants, defund­ing agen­cies and imple­ment­ing fund­ing freezes, which has impact­ed mul­ti­ple aspects of Amer­i­can life.  

Ener­gy fund­ing is one affect­ed area. In August, the admin­is­tra­tion halt­ed con­struc­tion on Rev­o­lu­tion Wind, an off­shore wind project that was expect­ed to reduce ener­gy costs in Con­necti­cut. The move was chal­lenged by Tong as well as oth­er par­ties to the project. The U.S. Dis­trict Court for the Dis­trict of Colum­bia issued an injunc­tion in Sep­tem­ber allow­ing for con­struc­tion to resume. 

The admin­is­tra­tion has sought to influ­ence cur­ricu­lum and pro­grams at col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties, threat­en­ing to with­hold fund­ing from insti­tu­tions that do not com­ply. Some schools have been specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed and have cho­sen to set­tle with the admin­is­tra­tion, most notably Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, which agreed to pay $200 mil­lion after threats and alle­ga­tions of anti-Semi­tism from Trump. Oth­er uni­ver­si­ties, includ­ing Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty, have tak­en a more com­bat­ive approach by suing the admin­is­tra­tion. 

While UConn has not been specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed like Colum­bia and Har­vard, it has still been impact­ed by cuts to research grants. UConn had $41 mil­lion in fed­er­al research grants ter­mi­nat­ed as of Oct. 15, impact­ing research in a vari­ety of pro­grams from health to polit­i­cal sci­ence. Tom Kat­souleas, an engi­neer­ing pro­fes­sor and for­mer pres­i­dent of UConn, has crit­i­cized the Trump admin­is­tra­tion for what he believes is an author­i­tar­i­an takeover of edu­ca­tion. In May, he and a group of sev­en oth­er for­mer uni­ver­si­ty pres­i­dents pub­lished an op-ed in the Wash­ing­ton Post call­ing for the pub­lic to “speak up in defense of pri­vate and pub­lic research uni­ver­si­ties and every­thing they do to ensure our way of life and the future secu­ri­ty and pros­per­i­ty of the nation.” 

“The Trump admin­is­tra­tion is mov­ing as far as it can towards being author­i­tar­i­an, and high­er edu­ca­tion and its pur­suit of truth is anti­thet­i­cal and an obsta­cle to form­ing more author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ment,” Kat­souleas said in an inter­view. “Author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ments like to devel­op their own nar­ra­tives … and uni­ver­si­ties being about truth then become prob­lem­at­ic.” 

Trump has also tried to seize con­trol over inde­pen­dent reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies. In Feb­ru­ary, he signed an exec­u­tive order requir­ing them to sub­mit fre­quent updates to the White House and reg­u­lar­ly coor­di­nate with them about pol­i­cy pro­pos­als and actions. 

Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get direc­tor Rus­sell Vought, who was one main archi­tects of the Project 2025 plan out­lin­ing goals for a con­ser­v­a­tive redesign of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, has been a key advo­cate for Trump tak­ing con­trol of these agen­cies and has argued that they aren’t ful­ly inde­pen­dent under the Con­sti­tu­tion. 

“There are no inde­pen­dent agen­cies,” he said in an inter­view with con­ser­v­a­tive polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor Tuck­er Carl­son as Trump pre­pared to take office. “Con­gress may have viewed them as such – SEC, or the FCC, CFPB, the whole alpha­bet soup – but that is not some­thing that the Con­sti­tu­tion under­stands.” 

Though the Fed­er­al Reserve Board of Gov­er­nors was list­ed as an exempt agency in the order, Trump announced in August his inten­tion to remove a Pres­i­dent Joe Biden appointee three years into her 14-year, Sen­ate-approved board term with­out cause. Lisa Cook sued the admin­is­tra­tion and a fed­er­al appeals court blocked her fir­ing in Sep­tem­ber.  

In Decem­ber, the Supreme Court heard oral argu­ments in anoth­er case, Trump v. Slaugh­ter, which was filed by two Demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­bers of the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion who were fired by Trump in March. Con­ser­v­a­tive mem­bers of the Court appeared open to allow­ing Trump to fire mem­bers of inde­pen­dent agen­cies, while the lib­er­al bloc opposed the idea.  

“You’re ask­ing us to destroy the struc­ture of gov­ern­ment and to take away from Con­gress its abil­i­ty to pro­tect its idea that the gov­ern­ment is bet­ter struc­tured with some agen­cies that are inde­pen­dent,” said Supreme Court Asso­ciate Jus­tice Sonia Sotomay­or.  

The U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment, an inde­pen­dent agency which fund­ed human­i­tar­i­an efforts around the world, was also quick­ly tar­get­ed by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion. He signed an exec­u­tive order in Jan­u­ary 2025 crit­i­ciz­ing for­eign aid and elim­i­nat­ed over 90% of USAID’s con­tracts, effec­tive­ly shut­ting down the orga­ni­za­tion before merg­ing it into the Depart­ment of State.  

“The Unit­ed States for­eign aid indus­try and bureau­cra­cy are not aligned with Amer­i­can inter­ests and in many cas­es anti­thet­i­cal to Amer­i­can val­ues,” the exec­u­tive order read. “They serve to desta­bi­lize world peace by pro­mot­ing ideas in for­eign coun­tries that are direct­ly inverse to har­mo­nious and sta­ble rela­tions inter­nal to and among coun­tries.  

Targeting Opposition 

Under Trump, the Nation­al Guard has been deployed in ways not seen since the Viet­nam War. In June, he deployed near­ly 4,000 Nation­al Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Ange­les in response to protests against aggres­sive immi­gra­tion raids. Since then, he has deployed troops to Mem­phis, Port­land, Chica­go and Wash­ing­ton, D.C.  

The legal­i­ty of these deploy­ments has been con­tin­u­ous­ly chal­lenged in courts. In Sep­tem­ber, the U.S. Dis­trict Court for the North­ern Dis­trict of Cal­i­for­nia ruled that Trump’s deploy­ment of the Nation­al Guard to Los Ange­les was ille­gal under the Posse Comi­ta­tus Act, which pro­hibits the use of the mil­i­tary in civil­ian law enforce­ment. In the rul­ing, U.S. Dis­trict Court Judge Charles Brey­er of the North­ern Dis­trict of Cal­i­for­nia said that send­ing in the troops would “cre­ate a brand-new excep­tion to the Posse Comi­ta­tus Act that nul­li­fies the act itself.” 

The deploy­ment of the Nation­al Guard to Port­land was also blocked by the courts. U.S. Dis­trict Court Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee from Ore­gon, issued two rul­ings in Octo­ber.

“Defen­dants have made a range of argu­ments that, if accept­ed, risk blur­ring the line between civ­il and mil­i­tary fed­er­al pow­er – to the detri­ment of this nation,” she wrote.

Immi­grants have been tar­get­ed exten­sive­ly under Trump, with ICE raids across the coun­try to achieve mass depor­ta­tions. The admin­is­tra­tion claims that near­ly two mil­lion undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants have either been deport­ed or self-deport­ed, while thou­sands have been held in deten­tion facil­i­ties across the coun­try.  

U.S. Sen. Chris Mur­phy of Con­necti­cut, one of Trump’s lead­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic crit­ics, said that this crack­down on immi­grants is “vio­lat­ing one of the most sacred laws of our nation” and is root­ed in racism.  

“The lies that they’ve per­pet­u­at­ed on the pub­lic is that there’s some spe­cif­ic threat posed by immi­grants, when in fact the oppo­site is true,” Mur­phy said in an inter­view. “This is a racist trope. The idea that immi­grants, and specif­i­cal­ly undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants are a secu­ri­ty threat, is just not true.” 

Trump has tak­en an aggres­sive approach against state and local elect­ed offi­cials who have crit­i­cized his actions. When Illi­nois gov­er­nor JB Pritzk­er and May­or Bran­don John­son expressed oppo­si­tion to the Nation­al Guard deploy­ment in Chica­go, Trump respond­ed in a Truth Social post that “Chica­go May­or should be in jail for fail­ing to pro­tect Ice Offi­cers! Gov­er­nor Pritzk­er also!” 

Trump also threat­ened to arrest Zohran Mam­dani, who was elect­ed may­or of New York City in Novem­ber, if he tried to block ICE arrests in the city, which Mam­dani vowed to do.  

After a group of Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers led by U.S. Sen. Mark Kel­ly of Ari­zona released a video telling sol­diers that “you can refuse ille­gal orders,” Trump took to Truth Social to call the video “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, pun­ish­able by DEATH!” Kel­ly has said he has received death threats since Trump’s post.  

The administration’s threats have also tar­get­ed media orga­ni­za­tions. In Sep­tem­ber, ABC sus­pend­ed “Jim­my Kim­mel Live!” after FCC Chair­man Bren­dan Carr threat­ened action against the net­work and par­ent com­pa­ny Dis­ney for host Jim­my Kimmel’s remarks about the death of Char­lie Kirk. The sus­pen­sion was her­ald­ed by Trump, who took to Truth Social to call for NBC to take sim­i­lar action against come­di­ans Jim­my Fal­lon and Seth Mey­ers, too.  

Trump has tak­en legal action against mul­ti­ple media orga­ni­za­tions. He filed a $15 bil­lion defama­tion law­suit against The New York Times regard­ing its cov­er­age of his 2024 cam­paign. The case was thrown out in Sep­tem­ber before being refiled in Octo­ber.  

In July, Para­mount agreed to pay $16 mil­lion to Trump to set­tle a law­suit he filed about the edit­ing of a “60 Min­utes” inter­view with Kamala Har­ris that aired on CBS in Octo­ber.  

Trump’s rhetoric has rein­forced the idea that he is crack­ing down on free speech. In Sep­tem­ber, he claimed that neg­a­tive TV cov­er­age about him is “no longer free speech” and said net­works should lose licens­es for air­ing con­tent crit­i­cal of him. After he signed an exec­u­tive order to crack down on the prac­tice of flag burn­ing, which the Supreme Court has long said is pro­tect­ed under the First Amend­ment, Trump said that his admin­is­tra­tion “took the free­dom of speech away.” 

 Inter­na­tion­al stu­dents at uni­ver­si­ties have had their visas revoked and been arrest­ed for pub­lish­ing op-eds and par­tic­i­pat­ing in protests. Among them was Rümeysa Öztürk, a doc­tor­al stu­dent at Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty in Mass­a­chu­setts who wrote an op-ed crit­i­ciz­ing the university’s response to the Israel-Gaza War and was detained by ICE in March. 

Trump has also used his pow­er to tar­get his crit­ics. He pres­sured grand juries in Vir­ginia to indict New York Attor­ney Gen­er­al Leti­tia James and for­mer FBI Direc­tor James Comey, two promi­nent Trump crit­ics, on charges of mak­ing false state­ments. The charges were dis­missed in Novem­ber. John Bolton, who became crit­i­cal of Trump after serv­ing as Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Advi­sor dur­ing his first term, was indict­ed in Octo­ber under pres­sure from Trump. 

Rule of Law 

In Trump’s expan­sive inter­pre­ta­tion of exec­u­tive pow­er, some experts see a bla­tant dis­re­gard for the rule of law. 

“It’s tough to describe how lit­tle Trump seems to care about the law; I would say he just doesn’t,” said Dan Bar­rett, legal direc­tor of the Con­necti­cut ACLU. “He views it as an exter­nal­i­ty, it’s just some­thing that affects oth­er peo­ple because the way in which he’s attempt­ing to change the law itself vio­lates the law, and the sub­stance almost always does as well.” 

The admin­is­tra­tion has chal­lenged the pow­er of the judi­cial branch, includ­ing ignor­ing a court order in a fight over depor­ta­tion flights, and has ques­tioned the author­i­ty of judges to rule on the administration’s actions.  

“Judges aren’t allowed to con­trol the executive’s legit­i­mate pow­er,” Vice Pres­i­dent J.D. Vance said in a post on social media plat­form X in Feb­ru­ary.  

A month lat­er, House Speak­er Mike John­son, a staunch Trump ally, assert­ed the pow­er of Con­gress over fed­er­al court bud­gets and the exis­tence of fed­er­al courts.  

“We do have author­i­ty over the fed­er­al courts,” he said. “We can elim­i­nate an entire dis­trict court. We do have pow­er over fund­ing over the courts and all these oth­er things. But des­per­ate times call for des­per­ate mea­sures and Con­gress is going to act.” 

Vir­ginia Het­tinger, a polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at UConn and expert on the judi­cial branch, said that the cur­rent attacks on the fed­er­al judi­cia­ry are not unprece­dent­ed. The Supreme Court’s juris­dic­tion has been changed by Con­gress before, but low­er courts have not been elim­i­nat­ed. She said that these attacks threat­en both the legit­i­ma­cy and integri­ty of the courts. 

“If the pub­lic does not per­ceive the courts as legit­i­mate, then will they fol­low those rul­ings?” she said. “And so then, what effect do attacks on courts have? And I think the threats are sig­nif­i­cant, poten­tial­ly, [and] it’s true regard­less of who the politi­cian is mak­ing those charges. I think that there are some real, crit­i­cal con­cerns about dam­age to the insti­tu­tion.” 

Trump has also tried to change who counts as an Amer­i­can. On his first day in office, he issued an exec­u­tive order that sought to end birthright cit­i­zen­ship for babies born in the U.S. with­out at least one par­ent who is a Amer­i­can cit­i­zen or law­ful per­ma­nent res­i­dent. 

Jon Bauer, a clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor at UConn Law focused on immi­gra­tion law, said that Trump’s exec­u­tive order direct­ly chal­lenges the Constitution’s guar­an­tee that any­one born in the U.S. is a cit­i­zen.  

“This exec­u­tive order just rad­i­cal­ly changed what the courts have rou­tine­ly held to be the mean­ing of the 14^th amend­ment,” he said. “And not sur­pris­ing­ly, in the cas­es that have chal­lenged the birthright cit­i­zen­ship exec­u­tive order, all of the courts to hear those cas­es so far have said that it is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and beyond the pow­er of the exec­u­tive.” 

The Supreme Court is set to con­sid­er the issue of whether Trump’s order to end birthright cit­i­zen­ship is con­sti­tu­tion­al some­time in ear­ly 2026.  

Lily Gold­blatt and Sara Bedi­gian con­tributed report­ing to this arti­cle.