Defender in Chief: Donald Trump's Fight for Presidential Power

by John Yoo

Overview

In Defender in Chief, celebrated constitutional scholar John Yoo makes a provocative case against Donald Trump's alleged disruption of constitutional rules and norms.

Donald Trump isn't shredding the Constitution—he's its greatest defender.

Ask any liberal—and many moderate conservatives—and they'll tell you that Donald Trump is a threat to the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution. Mainstream media outlets have reported fresh examples of alleged executive overreach or authoritarian White House decisions nearly every day of his presidency. In the 2020 primaries, the candidates have rushed to accuse Trump of destroying our democracy and jeopardizing our nation's very existence.

Yoo argues that this charge has things exactly backwards. Far from considering Trump an inherent threat to our nation's founding principles, Yoo convincingly argues that Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton would have seen Trump as returning to their vision of presidential power, even at his most controversial. It is instead liberal opponents who would overthrow existing constitutional understanding in order to unseat Trump, but in getting their man would inflict permanent damage on the office of the presidency, the most important office in our constitutional system and the world.

This provocative and engaging work is a compelling defense of an embattled president's ideas and actions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250269614
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/04/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	305
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

JOHN YOO is one of America's best-known conservative constitutional scholars. He is currently the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Previously, he served as an official in the U.S. Justice Department during the George W. Bush administration, general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He has written several books on American foreign policy and the power of the executive branch--including The Powers of War and Peace and Crisis and Command--and is a frequent guest on television programs.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1: “You’re Hired!”: Trump and the Electoral College
Chapter 2: “The End of My Presidency”: Trump and Enforcing the Law
Chapter 3: “I Need Loyalty!”: Trump and the Revolt of the Bureaucracy
Chapter 4: Draining the Swamp: The President’s Power to Reverse
Chapter 5: “We Have to Have Borders”: Trump and Immigration
Chapter 6: America First: Trump and Foreign Policy
Chapter 7: Fire and Fury: Trump at War
Chapter 8: “See You in the Supreme Court”: The Trump Judiciary
Chapter 9: “You’re Fired!”: Impeaching the President
Epilogue

Editorial Reviews

05/04/2020

Yoo (coauthor, Striking Power), a UC Berkeley law professor and former justice department official under George W. Bush, casts Donald Trump as a vigorous defender of “the constitutional order” in this sober-minded yet myopic account. Walking back his own previous warnings that the Trump administration represented “executive power run amok,” Yoo argues that Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey, successful pushback against the special counsel inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election and impeachment over the Ukraine affair, and “conservative makeover of the federal courts,” are all in line with the Framers’ vision of an “energetic unitary executive” with the authority to act quickly and decisively in matters of national interest while resisting legislative and judicial branch overreach. Yoo critiques Trump’s antiimmigration and protectionist trade policies, yet defends his legal right to enact them, and accuses Democratic lawmakers of posing the graver threat to the Constitution by calling for universal health care, wealth taxes, the elimination of the Electoral College, and the granting of “vast new powers” to “unaccountable” government agencies. Yoo cherry-picks historical evidence to support his arguments, treats the question of Trump’s actual motives as unimportant, and presents debatable claims, including that the post–Great Recession economy had recovered “listlessly” before Trump took office, as fact. This one-sided defense of the Trump presidency won’t change minds. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Donald Trump’s critics claim that he ignores the Constitution. But in a persuasive analysis, constitutional scholar John Yoo argues just the opposite. Trump may be an unlikely constitutionalist, but he certainly has done more than recent presidents in restoring executive powers as originally envisioned by the Founders from insidious encroachment by a progressive Congress and courts...An engaging, completely original, and superbly researched and argued analysis from one of America’s top legal minds that elevates the debate through Yoo’s mastery of history, jurisprudence, and dispassionate scholarship.”

––Victor Davis Hanson, the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, author of The Case for Trump

“Dreaded as a destructive demagogue, Donald Trump turns out to be a historically significant defender of the American constitutional order, of the Framers’ unique vision of executive vigor mindful of the law’s limits. No one could better elucidate this unlikely and welcome development than John Yoo, a Trump-skeptic and vitally important scholar of presidential power in our constitutional order. Defender in Chief is timely, brilliantly argued, and ultimately persuasive.”

––Andrew C. McCarthy, New York Times bestselling author and National Review contributing editor

“Why defend presidential power? Because, as counterintuitive as it might seem, energy in the executive actually advances individual freedom by curbing the threats of legislative and bureaucratic tyranny. The Founders understood this, and John Yoo’s Defender in Chief is an important reminder of the delicate balance of power our Constitution strikes.”

––Leonard Leo, co-chairman of the board of directors of the Federalist Society

From the Publisher