STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
His side may be struggling in this fall's elections, but the president boasted over the weekend of his growing power. He mentioned things he's doing now that he wouldn't have in his first term, like changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico. He also joked about how big companies would not take his call in the first term.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Now they kiss my a**, you know?
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INSKEEP: NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez reports on Trump's willingness to act without Congress.
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: President Trump was telling supporters in both Kentucky and across the river in Ohio that they had to get out and vote in next month's election. He was bragging about all the things that his administration was doing and would be able to continue to do.
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TRUMP: And, see, I don't think I could've done this in my first term. This is a much more powerful term. I can do stuff that's unbelievable.
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ORDOÑEZ: Trump continues to crash through barriers that he wouldn't dare cross in his first term. His Justice Department is raiding a congresswoman's home. He's knocking down trees in Washington, D.C., against a judge's wishes. And he's making deals with Russia that fly in the face of congressionally passed sanctions. Trump is hardly the first president to become frustrated and test the limits of his executive authority.
TEVI TROY: George Bush had the signing statements. Obama had the pen and the phone. Biden did things by executive action that he knew he couldn't do and needed to do legislatively. And Trump is part of that trend.
ORDOÑEZ: That's Tevi Troy, a presidential historian who worked in the George W. Bush White House, referring to all the ways presidents tried to unilaterally effect change. He argues Congress has been giving away its power for a quarter of a century, meaning Trump's inherited an increasingly powerful presidency. But Troy says Trump is using that power in distinctive ways and not just to get around congressional gridlock. He's using it to also go after political and cultural opponents.
TROY: What Trump is doing is saying, OK, I have executive authority. And that's the way he's really run his second term, as what I call a unilateralist. He doesn't have an ideology. He has a methodology, and the methodology is unilateralism.
ORDOÑEZ: The targets are not entirely surprising. Trump has spent years attacking news organizations, criticizing regulators and confronting political opponents, including members of his own party. Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist who helped lead Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, described Trump as a brawler who won't hesitate to use those extraordinary powers in all those fights.
RYAN WILLIAMS: Trump has made it very clear that he's going to approach his second term in a way where, you know, he gets what he wants. And he's the president, he's the boss, and he's not going to be restrained by, you know, traditions or aides that may say, you should hold back on this or this. He's going to do it.
ORDOÑEZ: Another example, the administration earlier this month announced investigations against nine universities, including Harvard and Yale, for allegedly bringing in international students to undercut American wages.
FRANK SESNO: And if they don't like a point of view, because it's not consistent with the administration's policies, they're prepared to, you know, take the gloves off to try to prevail, whether it's in court or through other means.
ORDOÑEZ: Frank Sesno is a former CNN Washington bureau chief who is now a media and public affairs professor at George Washington University. He says those other means include contracts, security clearances, investigations.
SESNO: And so these are the extensions of power that can only be exercised, in many ways, by the executive branch of the federal government. And they are awesome weapons.
ORDOÑEZ: The question is really no longer how much Trump can accomplish through executive action. It's how far the president can go and what, if anything, will constrain him. Franco Ordoñez, NPR News, the White House.
(SOUNDBITE OF WU-TANG CLAN SONG, "SLOW BLUES") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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