Are we now in a constitutional crisis?

As President Donald Trump and Elon Musk continue to sideline Congress and the courts in remaking American government, some believe we are in the midst of a constitutional crisis. One camp argues the moment of reckoning has already arrived.

The constitutional crisis "is here," said Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic. A crisis sometimes arrives "revealing itself gradually," but Trump and Musk's unprecedented actions have made the stakes of this moment "dramatically" clear. Another camp is hedging, even while acknowledging the challenges. America is on "the cusp" of a constitutional crisis, said Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) Sunday on Meet the Press. The Trump administration's decision to block Congress' spending directives is "so clearly illegal," he said.

There is "no universally accepted definition of a constitutional crisis," said The New York Times. But such a moment generally occurs as the "product of presidential defiance of laws and judicial rulings." Under that standard, the answer to the question is clear to legal scholars. "We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now," said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley.

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A 'three-alarm fire' for the Constitution

Trump is "trying to shove aside the other two branches of government," said The Washington Post. Presidents like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan made "sweeping changes to government and society." But they mostly colored inside the lines even as they tested the boundaries, experts say. Presidents "don't just dispense with Congress or ignore laws that are on the books," said Georgia State University law professor Michael Anthony Kreis. If the Trump administration decides to ignore court rulings blocking the president's orders, that amounts to a "three-alarm fire," said Loyola Law School's Jessica Levinson.

If there is a constitutional crisis, "it's being caused by these judges" blocking Trump's orders, Scott Jennings said on CNN. It isn't the job of the courts to "tell us how to spend the money. They're not here to set broad federal policy," he added. If Trump believes that the courts are usurping his presidential authority, "he should absolutely defy" their decisions.

Seeking 'legitimate executive power'

The Trump administration has set the stage for that kind of defiance. The courts "aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power," said Vice President J.D. Vance on social media. But federal judges have traditionally determined "what counts as the 'executive's legitimate power,'" said Andrew Prokop at Vox. If their rulings are disregarded by the White House, "we'll be embroiled in a very serious constitutional crisis."

That may be the point. Vance "wants a constitutional crisis," said Kim Wehle at The Bulwark. The courts are the "last bulwark against Trump's assaults on the rule of law and constitutional order." Defy their rulings, and Trump will have fallen short of his oath of office to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution." That's the crisis. "When a president fails to follow the law," Wehle said, "he is failing in that responsibility."