CNN
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President Donald Trump is using the power of the federal government to intimidate or neuter potential sources of opposition to him: The legal establishment, academia and prominent cultural institutions, the media, the judiciary, the Democratic Party, Congress and independent government oversight.
The unprecedented breadth of the actions Trump and his allies inside the government have taken against his perceived political and ideological opponents in his first two months back in office is stunning – both in the president’s willingness to test the limits of his powers and the extent to which his foes have struggled to respond or even bent to his will.
Through executive orders, his bully pulpit and lieutenants in charge of the Justice Department and other Cabinet agencies, Trump’s actions are paralyzing institutions that stand as pillars of America’s independent civic society.
Within the legal establishment, at least two law firms Trump has a political vendetta against have chosen to cut a deal with him to avert his threats. In academia, universities like Columbia have agreed to sweeping demands that encroach on principles of academic freedom that date back centuries.
“This White House’s public, multi-pronged frontal assault on national institutions is unprecedented,” said Timothy Naftali, the CNN presidential historian and senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “Institutions can be rebuilt, but political culture can be poisoned for a generation.”
The sources of typical opposition for a president have been quieted – if not quashed altogether. Independent media organizations like the Associated Press are being shut out of access to the president in favor of pro-Trump outlets, while state-supported media is gutted and threatened with defunding.
The legislative branch has in many ways ceded its constitutional role as a check on the executive. Republicans in Congress have mostly been willing to give up control of federal spending to the Department of Government Efficiency – which has shut down agencies and programs mandated by Congress. And Democrats have flailed amid infighting over how they should oppose Trump.
Inside his administration, Trump has fired the inspectors general at more than a dozen federal agencies, as well as the head of the Office of Government Ethics.
The one source of sustained pushback to Trump’s actions is the federal judiciary, where judges have repeatedly halted or reversed Trump’s actions that they have ruled go beyond the legal limit. The judges who have stopped Trump have faced attacks from the president and his allies – with threats of impeachment or the elimination of courts that oppose him – and many of the injunctions being levied at the district court level may ultimately not survive a Supreme Court where Trump appointed one third of the justices in his first term.
Trump has boasted about his effectiveness so far. At the White House on Wednesday, he gleefully said that he’s been able to pressure law firms and colleges because the Biden administration’s failures after he lost in 2020 allowed him to return to power and “do things that we could have never done if it were traditional.”
“You see what we’re doing with the colleges, and they’re all bending and saying, ‘Sir thank you very much we appreciate it,’” Trump said.
“And nobody can believe it – including law firms that have been so horrible, law firms that nobody would believe and they’re just saying, “Where do I sign where do I sign?” he continued. “Nobody can believe it. And there’s more coming.”
During the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly lobbed attacks against the prosecutors who investigated and indicted him. Now that he’s in office, he has gone a step further by kneecapping the law firms that have employed or defended those who investigated him.
Trump has signed executive orders revoking security clearances, restricting access to federal buildings and severing federal ties with lawyers from at least five law firms: one that Hillary Clinton hired in 2016, one retained by special counsel Jack Smith and three that had previously employed lawyers who investigated him.
The onslaught has divided the targeted firms: Some are trying to fight in court while others are settling with Trump.
Trump’s first two targets were Perkins Coie, the Democratic law firm that’s long been in Trump’s crosshairs for its role funding the 2016 Russia dossier, and Covington & Burling, where the White House suspended security clearances of lawyers representing former special counsel Jack Smith, now a private citizen.
Perkins Coie tried to fight back, quickly filing a lawsuit and winning a temporary restraining order from US District Judge Beryl Howell, who issued a scathing ruling accusing the administration of undermining the integrity of the legal system, writing that the president cannot “bring the federal government down on his political opponents … as he has done here.”
Another law firm targeted by Trump took a different path. New York-based Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was hit with an executive order in part because of the firm’s former partner, Mark Pomerantz, who had investigated Trump in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Last week, the firm struck a settlement with the administration agreeing to the equivalent of $40 million in pro bono legal services to “support the Administration’s initiatives,” in exchange for rescinding the executive order.
Brad Karp, the chairman of Paul Weiss, wrote in a letter to employees the executive order was an “unprecedented threat” that could have “destroyed our firm.” The firm settled, he argued, because a legal fight was a no-win situation.
Sensing weakness, Trump has expanded his list of targeted firms. On Tuesday, he issued another executive order, this time taking aim at Jenner & Block, where Andrew Weissman, a top investigator in the FBI’s 2016 Russia investigation, had once been a partner. And Thursday he added Wilmer Hale to his list, the former law firm of one-time special counsel Robert Mueller. Both firms filed lawsuits Friday to block Trump’s orders.
Another potential target, Skadden Arps, proactively settled with Trump on Friday ahead of a possible executive order, pledging at least $100 million in pro-bono work.
Trump also issued a memo last week to his attorney general, Pam Bondi, ordering her to review the conduct of law firms the administration considers to have filed “frivolous” lawsuits against the United States, going back to his first term.
“American law firms have always represented interests adverse to the US government, without worrying if there would be retribution or sanctions until now,” said Cari Brunelle, the founder of a legal advisory firm that works with several large American law firms. “It’s created just an incredible amount of fear.”
The Trump administration has turned the president’s anger over pro-Palestinian campus protests and encampments into policy that’s forced sweeping changes at Columbia University, considered the epicenter of the protests last year.
The Trump administration this month canceled $400 million in federal grants to Columbia over alleged “inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” Three agencies sent Columbia a letter demanding sweeping policy changes in order to regain access to the money.
The changes included implementing stricter rules for protests, banning masks, announcing a plan to hold student groups accountable, empowering law enforcement, and reviewing its Middle East studies programs and admissions.
“It is, I think, the most serious intrusion into academic freedom, and the autonomy of universities,” said Lee Bollinger, a First Amendment scholar and Columbia’s president for more than two decades. (Naftali, the former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, said that Nixon had wanted to crack down on universities over anti-war protests, but his aides stopped him.)
Last week, Columbia agreed to the Trump administration’s demands. The federal government responded positively but also said that it was “only the first step in rehabilitating its relationship with the government.”
Columbia is hardly the only university in the government’s crosshairs: The Department of Education is now investigating 60 colleges and universities for alleged violations “relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination.”
The administration’s immigration authorities have targeted a half-dozen foreign-born students and academics at Columbia and other top universities for deportation over their alleged roles in pro-Palestinian protests.
The Trump administration has also pushed universities to align with the administration’s stance on diversity programs and transgender women competing in women’s sports.
Perhaps the most long-term threat to American universities is the Trump administration’s desire to slash the grant funding that universities receive, which universities and scientists say could be devastating for research in America.
In addition to universities, Trump this week directed his government to scrutinize and threaten funding for the Smithsonian Institution to force federal museums to “remove improper ideology” from their exhibits.
Banning and investigating the press
Trump constantly attacked the reporters that covered him as “fake news” during his first term, and his rhetoric helped erode public confidence in the media.
Now Trump’s White House and several arms of the government are taking more direct aim at Trump’s perceived opponents in the press.
The White House barred the Associated Press from the Oval Office, the White House press pool and other events because it objected to the news outlet’s language. The White House singled out the AP because it continued to use the phrase “Gulf of Mexico” even though Trump renamed the body of water “Gulf of America.”
The AP has sued the White House to regain its access.
The White House last month went a step further by taking control of which news outlets get access to the president in the press pool, adding pro-Trump outlets in place of the AP and others.
The Federal Communications Commission has launched investigations into several media companies – including CBS’ “60 Minutes” for its interview of Trump’s Democratic opponent Kamala Harris last year. The FCC demanded CBS provide the transcript and raw footage of the interview. (The transcript, which the network published, showed CBS engaged in normal editing and not nefarious activity as Trump had alleged, CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote).
“This is a retaliatory move by the government against broadcasters whose content or coverage is perceived to be unfavorable,” said Anna Gomez, one of two Democrats on the FCC.
In addition, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr quickly reversed eleventh-hour decisions from his Biden-era predecessor by reviving complaints that had been brought against local CBS, ABC and NBC stations – but not complaints against a Fox station. Carr has been unabashed about treating the historically independent agency as an extension of the Trump White House, including publicly touting “DEI” probes of NBC owner Comcast and ABC owner Disney.
The FCC has also launched probes of NPR and PBS over the sponsorship practices of their member stations, and individual public radio stations over their reporting on immigration raids.
In Congress, Republicans have called for stripping federal funding of NPR and PBS – Trump said this week he would “love to do that.” And the Trump administration has already gutted Voice of America, the state-run media outlet that broadcasts around the world.
Media outlets have grappled with how to respond. ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit from Trump by pledging $15 million to a presidential foundation. The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos – whose other companies receive government contracts – asserted control over the direction of the newspaper’s opinion section last month, prompting resignations and a staff revolt.
CBS’s parent company, Paramount, agreed to a merger last year with Skydance that needs government sign-off. Paramount has reportedly considered settling a lawsuit from Trump against CBS over the 60 Minutes interview with Harris.
Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress have largely stood back and supported the way Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE have taken over federal spending, raising little objection to the canceling of funds appropriated by Congress and destruction of agencies created via laws passed by the legislative branch.
The process of largely dismantling the US Agency for International Development and the Department of Education happened with little pushback from GOP lawmakers, even if the law requires Congress to play a role.
“You can do a lot with just the use of executive authority, and I don’t have any problem with the president aggressively using executive authority,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole told CNN.
In response to mounting pressure from constituents, some lawmakers have privately raised concerns about the party’s rhetoric towards federal workers, relying on backchannels with agency heads, while others have leveraged their personal connections in the administration to get certain federal programs impacting their districts turned back on. In closed-door meetings, they’ve urged Musk to move his efforts to slash spending through Congress.
But the recent government funding process showed just how far Republicans were willing to go in abdicating their role over the power of the purse to the Trump administration. The bill that passed to keep the government open did not reflect the cuts the administration had made, which meant that Congress was no longer dictating the terms for which money was being spent.
When given the room to speak anonymously, many Republicans are blunter about the way the Trump administration is bulldozing through institutional norms.
“If this was a Democratic administration with the same things happening, people would be lit up about it,” one GOP lawmaker told CNN. “So, I think we have to be careful about the precedent that they’re setting.”
Democrats involved in the process say Trump’s spending moves violate the law.
“I absolutely believe that this administration is acting illegally and that we have a responsibility here in Congress to hold them accountable,” Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democratic appropriator in the Senate, told CNN. She joined with GOP Sen. Susan Collins to protest Trump not designating $3 billion in emergency funds approved by Congress from the spending bill.
But any Democratic hopes to use the spending process to slow Musk fizzled out, after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to back the spending bill rather than shut the government down to try to win concessions from the administration.
Democrats are now completely out of power in Washington, still pointing fingers about the reasons they lost to Trump and trying to find a winning message to oppose him. They say they already see warning signs that Trump’s Justice Department and Republicans in Congress could use their power to harm Democrats’ political operations.
Ed Martin, interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia, has pushed for investigations into congressional Democrats, including reportedly seeking to present evidence to a grand jury over comments Schumer made about Supreme Court justices in 2020.
Democrats are also gearing up for a fight on the rules surrounding elections after a new executive order this week attempts to dramatically reshape how US elections are carried out. Democrats and voting rights experts this week denounced the executive order as a blatant power grab.
Trump’s order, which is likely to be challenged in court, seeks to use the withholding of federal funding and other threats of action to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote – which critics say could disenfranchise millions of Americans – and to demand that states refuse to accept mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day. It also would allow federal officials to compare state voter rolls against federal databases in a search for unlawful voters, an exercise election experts say is likely to turn up false positives.
Musk and congressional Republicans have also turned their attention to Democrats’ powerhouse fundraising platform, ActBlue. Senior Republicans in Congress are urging Trump’s Treasury Department to share with lawmakers reports of suspicious financial transactions related to ActBlue and calling for probes from Treasury and the FBI.
Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy is urging the FCC to reconsider a decision last year that allowed billionaire Democratic megadonor George Soros to become the largest shareholder in Audacy and its empire of more than 200 radio stations.
The tactic by Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill to target progressive groups and law firms aligned with Democrats amounts to “using the levers of government to try and permanently destroy political opposition, which is what authoritarianism looks like,” said one person close to Democratic fundraising circles.
Mike Davis, a former legal adviser to Trump and unapologetic evangelist for political retribution, forewarned during a recent appearance in Florida that there would be “severe legal, political and financial consequences” for many Democrats over the next four years. Reached by CNN, Davis held back on providing specifics of what’s to come, but suggested Trump’s early moves have made clear he intends to inflict pain on those he feels wronged him.
“We’re not going to turn the other cheek,” Davis said. “And this is not the Trump 45 administration. They’ve learned from their mistakes. Four years in office, four years in the wilderness, four years in lawfare.”
Michael Berry, a conservative lawyer serving as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s chief counsel, acknowledged recently an “internal tension” over whether to “fight fire with fire.” Sharing a stage with Davis, Berry concluded, “We have to continue to take the high ground.”
Davis disagreed. “Two wrongs don’t make it right,” he said. “But it makes it even.”
Trump’s efforts to stretch the limits of his executive authority have been repeatedly curtailed by the third branch of government: the judiciary.
There have been more than 100 lawsuits filed against the administration’s executive actions in the first two months of Trump’s presidency. They hit on all aspects of Trump’s attempts to wield his power – from firing federal workers and slashing federal aid to deportations under the Alien Enemies Act and Trump’s executive order to ban birthright citizenship.
In dozens of those cases, judges have temporarily blocked the Trump administration from taking action, so the cases can be litigated. Ultimately, much of Trump’s efforts to bend US institutions to his will could come before the Supreme Court, where Trump’s lawyers remain confident he will ultimately prevail in his use of executive power.
But many of the judges who have slowed Trump have come under professional and personal attack from both the president’s allies and Trump himself on social media.
Some Trump allies in Congress want to impeach the judges who oppose his policies, even though such an effort has no chance of succeeding. House Speaker Mike Johnson this week suggested Congress should consider eliminating district courts altogether, while there are several Republican bills to curtail nationwide injunctions.
US District Judge James Boasberg, the chief just of the federal court in Washington, DC, has been a top Trump target. Trump smeared Boasberg as a “Radical Left Lunatic Judge” and called for his impeachment on social media, drawing a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts.
Trump’s ire stems from Boasberg’s ruling temporarily blocking the Trump administration’s use of a 1798 law for deportations. Boasberg has since pressed the administration to explain how it didn’t defy his court order when it refused to turn two flights to El Salvador around earlier this month.
The Trump administration’s possible violation of Boasberg’s order has prompted fears that the White House will openly defy his – and other – court orders without facing repercussions.
“There’s been a lot of talk over the last seven weeks about a constitutional crisis. People are throwing that term around,” ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said at a hearing Boasberg held on the deportations. “I think we are getting very close to it.”
CNN’s Katelyn Polantz, Tierney Sneed, Devan Cole, Ray Sanchez and Brian Stelter contributed to this report.
