On this Presidents’ Day edition of We the People, political historian Julian Zelizer of Princeton and constitutional law professor Eric Posner of the University of Chicago Law School join host Jeffrey Rosen to debate the question: Is the presidency too powerful? Starting with the Founding Fathers’ vision for the presidency, they trace the evolution of presidential power through the Progressive Era presidencies of Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson, the move to restrain presidential power in the 1970s during LBJ’s and Richard Nixon’s presidencies, and the uptick in exercises of unilateral presidential power by modern presidents like George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. Finally, they share their thoughts on presidential emergency powers and President Trump’s recent declaration of a national emergency to fund construction of the border wall.
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