On Jan. 20, 2025, Donald Trump swore he would "to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

He must have had his fingers crossed. Since then, he has opened a multipronged attack against those constitutional provisions that inhibit his primary goal: amassing power and wealth.

Trump has launched a war against Iran. There are good reasons to have done so. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his murderous regime were directly or indirectly responsible for attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, for Hamas' 2023 murderous assault on Israel, for an alleged assassination attempt on Trump himself, and for the recent slaughter of tens of thousands of Iranian citizens.

But despite all this, Trump has no power to declare war under the Constitution. Section 1 explicitly gives Congress the "Power... to declare War." Trump doesn't care. As he said last August: "I have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the president of the United States."

Other presidents didn't see it that way. After Japanese planes and submarines attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, it was Congress, not President Franklin Roosevelt, who officially declared war. In August 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson sought and was granted broad authority by Congress "to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force" to protect South Vietnam. In October 2002, Congress voted to give President George W. Bush the authorization he requested to use military forces to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq."

Trump's attack on constitutional provisions is not restricted to war-making powers. His administration rounded up and deported immigrants to countries where they have no ties without giving them notice or a chance to challenge the decision. A district court ruled those actions violated the Constitution's Fifth Amendment, which says no person can be "deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law" by the federal government. The administration is fighting the ruling.

The Constitution assigns the power to "lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises" to Congress. This did not stop Trump from levying tariffs willy-nilly as the mood took him. After almost a year, the Supreme Court struck down his tariffs. Trump does not like hearing no from anyone. He called three of the justices who voted against him "fools and lapdogs." He is now claiming the right to reimpose tariffs under a Congressional law with a 150-day limit.

Trump has threatened specific law firms with steps that would drastically curtail their revenues by stripping their security clearances, restricting their access to federal buildings, and ending their federal contracts. He did this because of his objection to clients they have represented such as former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton or to attorneys they have employed such as former special counsel Robert Mueller. Four of the firms won injunctions against the actions in federal district court, based on constitutional guarantees to free speech and association, due process and right to counsel. The administration is appealing.

The administration also issued a ban on federal funding at Harvard, including research into ALS treatments and a tuberculosis vaccine. Judge Allison Burroughs overturned the ban holding, "Now it is the job of the courts to similarly step up, to act to safeguard academic freedom and freedom of speech as required by the Constitution,... even if doing so risks the wrath of a government committed to its agenda no matter the cost." The administration is appealing.

The president accepted a gift of an airliner from the royal family of Qatar. The Constitution stipulates that "no person holding any Office of Profit or Trust... shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present... from any King, Prince, or foreign State." Trump received no such Congressional approval.

While American aircrews wage a war overseas under orders from the president, the president fights a war at home against the Constitution.

Last year, NBC's Kristen Welker asked Trump, "Don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?" He replied, "I don't know."

A renaissance man, Keith Raffel has served as the senior counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, started a successful internet software company, and had six books published including five novels and a collection of his columns. He currently spends the academic year as a resident scholar at Harvard. You can learn more about him at keithraffel.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at creators.com

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