Trump Keeps Passing the Buck to Congress
On Obamacare subsidies, the Iran deal, and DACA, the president has taken unprecedented steps to hand executive authority back to lawmakers.
Bill Clinton fought Congress tooth and nail, from shutdowns to impeachment. George W. Bush boasted that he was “the decider.” Barack Obama groused that if lawmakers were unwilling to take actions he wanted, he would take up his “pen and phone.”
Donald Trump, however, is more than willing to let Congress act. Of all the norms that he has upended in his short tenure as president, Trump’s willingness to pass the buck back to lawmakers is one of the most unexpected, curious, and perhaps salubrious. This impulse was on display in two major moves this week, on health care and the Iran deal, and this week the White House also laid out its principles on a third—how to deal with
