The Balance of Power

Video explainer series: An overview on presidential power

By Lily Gold­blatt
UConn Jour­nal­ism

Fol­low­ing Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s return to office in Jan­u­ary 2025, his admin­is­tra­tion has tak­en an expan­sive inter­pre­ta­tion of exec­u­tive pow­er and broad­ened the scope of the exec­u­tive branch expo­nen­tial­ly. In the first year of his sec­ond term, he has passed a total of 225 exec­u­tive orders, far sur­pass­ing the num­ber of exec­u­tive orders any Unit­ed States pres­i­dent has passed in one year.

Watch the video series below to learn how Trump’s admin­is­tra­tive actions have worked to sup­press free speech, as well as crack down on immi­gra­tion, DEI and the free­dom to protest.

Part 1 — Overview

While unprece­dent­ed, Don­ald Trump’s admin­is­tra­tive actions have been made pos­si­ble by a lin­eage of expand­ing pres­i­den­tial pow­er. How has exec­u­tive pow­er pro­gressed in the last sev­er­al decades, and how has Trump con­tin­ued this expan­sion dur­ing his pres­i­den­cy?

Part 2 — The Rule of Law

After Trump fired sev­er­al fed­er­al judges in 2025, many have point­ed to a fail­ure of check and bal­ances on his pres­i­den­tial pow­er and the kind of uni­lat­er­al author­i­ty this lack of over­sight sets a prece­dent for.

Part 3 — Reg­u­la­to­ry Agen­cies

While inde­pen­dent reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies have his­tor­i­cal­ly been autho­rized by Con­gress to enforce and reg­u­late fed­er­al laws inde­pen­dent from the White House, Trump has demand­ed “account­abil­i­ty” for these agen­cies and said that all reg­u­la­to­ry action must first go through the pres­i­dent. 

Part 4 — Mil­i­ta­riza­tion

Fol­low­ing protests against aggres­sive immi­gra­tion raids, Trump deployed thou­sands of nation­al guard troops to major cities around the coun­try in a move that crit­ics like Con­necti­cut Sen­a­tor Chris Mur­phy have called despot­ic.

Part 5 — No Kings and Free Speech

In Octo­ber, No Kings protests cropped up all around the coun­try as a way to speak out against what many have called author­i­tar­i­an actions tak­en by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion. These actions includ­ed the call for media com­pa­nies to remove “anti-Trump” talk show hosts from the air.

Part 6 — Immi­gra­tion

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion has tak­en an unprece­dent­ed­ly harsh approach to immi­gra­tion, spark­ing fear in com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try.

Part 7 — DEI

In his sec­ond term, Trump has vowed to go after diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion (DEI) ini­tia­tives and what he has termed as “rad­i­cal gen­der ide­ol­o­gy.” Edu­ca­tors and legal experts say this kind of rhetoric is dan­ger­ous for mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties

Part 8 — K‑12 and High­er Edu­ca­tion

Edu­ca­tors share con­cerns about how anti-DEI ini­tia­tives and threats to inter­na­tion­al stu­dents are devalu­ing edu­ca­tion in the Unit­ed States.

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