The World and Everything in It - February 12, 2025

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Washington Wednesday, the Department of Government Efficiency is stirring things up. But what are the limits of its authority?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, our weekly international news roundup on World Tour.

And later, mothers find an ally in RFK Jr. and his plans for making America healthy again.

YON: I think we've never seen someone boldly and openly represent the mothers, and that's such a powerful thing.

And what the constitution says about executive orders.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, February 12th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

MAST: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR:  Trump welcomes American teacher released by Russia President » Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and others stood in the snow last night to greet Marc Fogel outside the White House.

SOUND: [Fogel welcome ceremony]

Fogel is an American teacher who had been imprisoned in Russia over what his family said was prescribed medical marijuana.

Inside the White House moments later thanked those who worked to secure his release:

FOGEL:  President Trump, these men that came from the diplomatic service, the senators and representatives that passed legislation in my honor to get me home.

Trump officials say his release came amid a diplomatic thaw that the president hopes will lead to serious talks aimed at ending the Ukraine war. The president indicated that another prisoner release from Russia may be announced today.

Israel latest » Hamas has until noon on Saturday to release all of its remaining hostages or else.

That’s the deadline given by both President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Netanyahu reiterated that deadline Tuesday

NETANYAHU: [Speaking Hebrew]

He says that if the hostages aren't released Israel will pull out of the ceasefire agreement and resume attacks against Gaza.

Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv … 

SOUND: [Israel demonstration]

Demonstrators took to the streets once again carrying signs that read “Don’t blow the deal” and calling on the Israeli government to end the war.

Trump meeting with Jordan crown prince » President Trump also discussed the situation in the Middle East with another of America’s allies in the region.

TRUMP:  The King just left and we, uh, we've had a great discussion, terrific discussion, uh, concerning Gaza and everything else.

King Abdullah of Jordan met with the president at the White House.

Abdullah later dodged questions about Trump’s request to resettle Palestinian refugees in Jordan while the United States takes over in Gaza and works to rebuild it. Jordan has agreed to take in 2,000 sick Palestinian children to start.

DOGE » A short time later, the president and Elon Musk welcomed reporters in the Oval Office to talk about the ongoing efforts of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk who leads that effort Musk said reigning in the spiraling national debt is critical for America’s future. And he said taking an ax to the entrenched administrative state is a must.

MUSK:  We have this unelected, uh, fourth unconstitutional branch of government, which is the bureaucracy, which has, in a lot of ways currently, more power than any elected representative.

In response to complaints and concerns about transparency, Musk said all actions are shared on the DOGE website.

President Trump also signed an executive order Tuesday directing DOGE to limit hiring to essential positions only. The plan is to replace just one federal worker for every four who leave, aiming to streamline government.

But key areas like national security, law enforcement are exempt from the order.

Watchdog to DOGE: Cut Planned Parenthood funding » And a conservative watchdog group is urging DOGE to take a hard look at funds going to Planned Parenthood. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: According to a report from the Government Accountability Office, Planned Parenthood received roughly $75 billion in federal taxpayer dollars from 2019 to 2021.

That included more than 20-billion in Health and Human Services grants and over 50-billion from public health programs.

And the head of Advancing American Freedom, Tim Chapman, wrote to Elon Musk on Tuesday. He said " the time has come for the United States to finally defund the largest abortion provider in America."

The letter added "While we are grateful for your work eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse throughout the federal government, we truly believe that the opportunity to defund Planned Parenthood may be yours and President Trump’s greatest moment,"

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Winter weather » Winter weather is blasting numerous Mid-Atlantic states dropping heavy snow in some places and icing over roads and power lines.

Brian Hurley with the National Weather Service:

HURLEY:   Lot of areas with four to six inches of snow including the D. C. Baltimore area. D. C. Baltimore farther north might be four or five inches and then areas farther south like towards Fredericksburg, Virginia, we could be looking at anywhere from six to eight inches or even more.

Winter storm warnings extend from Kentucky to southern New Jersey.

A separate storm system is expected to dump heavy snow from Kansas and Missouri to the Great Lakes starting Tuesday night.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. Plus, women supporting the Make America Healthy Again movement.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 12th of February.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Time now for Washington Wednesday.

The Trump administration’s move to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development sparked considerable debate. Federal employees sued, and a judge put the plan on hold. But now the key question is around the status of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency: does it have legal authority to shut agencies down?

MAST: Washington Bureau reporter Carolina Lumetta has the story.

CROWD: Hey hey, ho ho, Elon Musk has got to go…

FRANKEL: Okay, he's gotta go, but you gotta stay, and we gotta fight back.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Democratic lawmakers rallied in Washington last week to protest Elon Musk’s new role in the federal government. At a gathering on Capitol grounds, Florida Congresswoman Lois Frankel read protesters’ signs.

FRANKEL: Stop the freeze. When USAID disappears, terrorists reappear. Defend democracy. Stop the coup.

USAID operates in more than 130 countries, running programs from health initiatives to food banks. Congress gives about 50-billion-dollars to the agency each year.

YORK: I'm sure that there's stuff going on in USAID that isn't consistent with the mission, just as there would be in any organization.

Brian York works in restaurants in Fairfax County, Virginia…west of Washington. His wife and several family members work for USAID.

YORK: To my mind, proper management doesn't look like if you get a splinter in your finger that you cut off your arm. Proper management is dealing with issues on a case-by-case basis and responding accordingly.

But the Trump administration, and growing numbers of Republican lawmakers, say USAID has been funding anti-American activities… and wasting money on a large scale.

They argue Trump’s stop work order is part of a necessary audit. Trump and Musk have accused the agency of using taxpayer dollars for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs or even funneling aid money indirectly to terrorist organizations. Trump has named Secretary of State Marco Rubio the acting administrator for the agency. Here’s Rubio…visiting a maintenance company in El Salvador last week.

RUBIO: Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, that program will be aligned with the national interest of the United States, and USAID has a history of ignoring that and deciding they are somehow a global charity. These are taxpayer dollars.

So what does Elon Musk have the authority to do? Democratic lawmakers say he is exceeding the advisory role the White House gave him. Delaware Senator Chris Coons told WORLD his office phone has been ringing off the hook.

COONS: I've gotten calls about Department of Education, I've gotten calls about DOD, I've gotten calls about USAID, but the 1,100 calls were mostly about how did Elon Musk and Doge get access to Americans' private information

Legal experts say Musk’s role is testing the separation between legislative and executive powers, but that does not mean it’s illegal.

TOM RENZ: There's no evidence that he's anything more than another employee or appointee.

Tom Renz is an attorney and conservative talk show host. He explained that while Musk has massive wealth and social influence, his government role is limited to leading a rebranded federal agency. Former President Barack Obama created the Digital Services Department in 2014…after the bumpy rollout of the healthcare web portal created by the Affordable Care Act. Now Trump has repurposed that department into DOGE.

RENZ: All they did was they put Musk, who just happens to be a software genius, in charge of the department that was looking over the software for the government. And I haven’t seen any direct evidence that these guys are doing anything illegal. Now you can debate about whether or not it's acceptable to shut down, you know, this funding or that funding. I mean, that we can talk about, but that's not DOGE. What DOGE is doing is just simply looking at the software, which is definitely within the purview of the USDS.

But Democrats say DOGE is doing more than an audit. Employees gained access to Treasury Department systems and shut off payments to USAID contractors. DOGE staffers then sent emails telling employees in Washington not to come to the office.

Many blame Elon Musk for the changes, but Renz points out that the executive order establishing DOGE did not grant decision making power to Musk.

RENZ: We don't know precisely who's making the decision, but we know that a lot of that's being done elsewhere… 

President Donald Trump said in a news conference last week that checks and balances still apply.

TRUMP: "He's got access only to letting people go that he thinks are no good if we agree with him and it's only if we agree with him. He's a very talented guy from the standpoint of management and costs… Where we think there’s a conflict or a problem, we won’t let him go near it

According to the White House, Musk holds a special government employee status. He’s unpaid, but has direct access to the president. He’s also exempt from filing conflict of interest forms even though companies he owns do business with agencies he is investigating. Jim Copland, a legal fellow at the Manhattan Institute, says that is not something to ignore.

COPLAND: Sure, he's got conflicts of interest. And, you know, this is what the press is about, is trying to watch that. And that's what congressional oversight committees are about, is trying to watch such things and make sure there's not impropriety.

Congress traditionally holds the power of the purse, and it is also Congress’ responsibility to close or create federal agencies. But Republican lawmakers say Musk’s budget cuts accomplish what they haven’t been able to with narrow majorities. I spoke with Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas near an elevator in the Capitol:

MARSHALL: I think Elon's doing a great job, the will of the people are behind him. So the American people want President Trump to address fraud, waste, abuse, and incompetence.

Senator Pete Ricketts of Nebraska said he’s all for efficiency updates, and that’s under the White House’s purview.

RICKETTS: The executive branch is the only place that you can really effectively do process improvement. Congress doesn't have an operational role, so therefore we can certainly encourage those sorts of things. You need the executive branch to actually do it.

Few Republicans have expressed concern about Musk’s level of access. Instead, most say they’re comfortable giving the billionaire a long runway. That includes Florida Congressman Byron Donalds.

DONALDS: I think it's everything went so horribly wrong with Joe Biden that the American people are giving us a lot of room to clean this thing up and that's what we're gonna do.

Yesterday, a federal judge blocked DOGE employees from accessing Treasury Department payment systems. Another federal judge blocked a deadline last Friday for federal employees to accept a buyout offer and resign from their posts. And yet another federal judge temporarily paused a February 7 deadline to place all USAID direct hires on indefinite administrative leave.

Here’s Copland with the Manhattan Institute.

COPLAND: Ultimately the president may lose some of that if they're really trying to, to curtail appropriations without congressional authority, but to the extent that they're freezing certain payments that are going out where there's not an express congressional directive and then they're repurposing that in some other direction, I think a lot of that's going to pass muster.

Trump has said Musk will also look into the Education department and the Pentagon. And during a news conference yesterday, Elon Musk explained why DOGE exists.

MUSK:If the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have? If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives in the form of the President and the Senate and the House, then we don't live in a democracy we live in a bureaucracy.

As an unelected federal worker himself, Elon Musk said his department will be transparent. Reporters asked who manages conflicts of interest, such as Musk’s federal contracts with the Pentagon. Here’s how he answered:

MUSK: Well, we actually are trying to be as transparent as possible. In fact, we post our actions to the DOGE handle on X and to the DOGE website. So all of our actions are maximally transparent… you can see am I doing something that benefits one of my companies or not.

After the news conference, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to comply with DOGE. It also says agencies must plan for large-scale workforce reductions.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta in Washington.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Oduah.

AUDIO: [Chanting supporters]

ONIZE ODUAH: Ecuador election — We start today in Ecuador where a presidential election ended in a runoff.

In Sunday’s vote, incumbent President Daniel Noboa scored a narrow lead over his top rival, leftist Luisa González. But both contenders fell short of the 50% of votes needed to avoid another round of voting.

Their campaigns centered on Ecuador’s economic and security struggles.

The country has seen record murder rates, along with rises in kidnapping and extortion cases. Authorities have blamed cocaine trafficking in neighboring Colombia and Peru for the increased violence.

Voter Manuel Brito said he hopes for better security.

BRITO: [SPANISH] You can't even go out to the corner. It's dangerous these days; it's not like before when it was peaceful.

He says that frequent violence makes it nearly impossible to leave the house.

Both presidential candidates will face off again on April 13.

AUDIO: [Protest]

Slovakia protest — Over in Slovakia—Poland’s southern neighbor—tens of thousands of people chanted at anti-government demonstrations across some 40 towns.

Protesters called for populist Prime Minister Robert Fico to step down.

Fico has faced demonstrations for weeks as opponents accuse him of undermining the country’s position in the European Union.

The latest protests follow his visit to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin back in December.

Barbora Kabínová is a homemaker who joined the Friday march.

KABINOVA: [SLOVAK] The ideal scenario would be for the government to resign and leave the governing to those who cherish democratic principles and put freedom first and that will to continue to be part of the world we belong to, Western Europe.

She says the ideal case would be for Fico to step down and pave the way for people who respect democratic principles to assume office.

Fico has accused his opponents of staging a foreign-backed coup. His government has questioned the supremacy of the E.U.’s legislation over national law. It also faced backlash for its position on only two sexes and for shielding children from adoption by LGBTQ parents.

The protests will resume again next week.

AUDIO: [Sound of kids at school]

Brazil smartphone ban — In Brazil, school authorities began implementing new smartphone restrictions as classes resumed last week.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a bill earlier in the year to ban smartphones from classrooms and break times in public and private schools.

Some regions and schools already implemented some level of restrictions ahead of the federal law.

At the Porto Seguro private school in Sao Paulo, authorities expanded the restrictions to include hallways. That means students have to keep their phones in their lockers for the entire school day.

Meire Nocito is the school principal.

NOCITO: [PORTUGUESE] Students were having trouble concentrating. Many students who used technology excessively would isolate themselves during breaks, interacting only through social media.

She says that, before the ban, students struggled with concentrating and also isolated themselves during breaks.

Brazil’s Ministry of Education says the policies are intended to protect the physical and mental health of students.

AUDIO: [Namibia chants]

Namibia — We wrap up today in Namibia where residents are mourning the passing of one of the country’s freedom fighters.

Sam Nujoma—an independence activist who also served as the country’s first president—died late on Saturday. He was 95.

Nujoma spent nearly 30 years in exile. During that time, he championed the country’s independence movement in the aftermath of Germany’s colonial rule and then from South Africa’s occupation.

He became Namibia’s first democratically elected president in 1990 … and served for 15 years. Namibians also laud him for promoting national healing and reconciliation after the war with South Africa.

Pedro da Fonseca is a resident of the capital city of Windhoek.

FONSECA: Dr. Sam Nujoma’s loss is truly great, not just for us but also for Africa. He is one of the last standing leaders who comes from a regime where we can talk about Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, you know Kenyatta’s. He comes from a regime where they were truly revolutionary for Africa. And such a loss, him being one of the last greats standing.

Tributes have poured in from the African Union and other African leaders.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Oduah in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: What’s in a name? Well, for one elected official in Australia, apparently, what’s in a name is an entire political identity.

Plain old member of parliament Ben Dawkins wants everyone to think of him as the Aussie Trump.

TRUMP: This is a political protest. I want to be like Trump in the sense of calling out woke leftist nonsense.

But that’s easier to do if your name matches your attitude, so Dawkins got the paperwork to prove it. Official first name Austin, official last name Trump. Aussie Trump. Get it? 

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Got it. 

EICHER: Good. And what do locals say about Aussie Trump?

AUDIO: I don’t know. I’m speechless.

Elections are next month, and Dawkins hopes his punchy new calling card will truly be the Trump card he was hoping for.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, February 12th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: MAHA Moms.

EICHER: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services has sparked fierce debate—especially over his views on vaccines, Big Pharma, and industrialized agriculture. But among his loudest supporters? Mothers who’ve rallied behind the slogan, Make America Healthy Again.

MAST: I spoke with some of these MAHA moms about why they see this moment as a turning point for the country’s health.

BELLA YON: He lost all eye contact. He lost all language that he had at 18 months, you know, just the few words that he had that he lost it all, really just a very sick child, major gastrointestinal issues.

Bella Yon says her family’s life changed forever the day her 18-month-old brother had a seizure in the pediatrician's office. Her parents had taken him in for a routine vaccination in her home country of England.

YON: That was enough for my parents to say, no more. We know what happened to our son, and we're going to look into this and make sure that it doesn't happen to anyone again.

The family has documented Bella’s brother’s struggles on YouTube and in documentaries:

AUDIO: [Video of brother and mom]

She says he never recovered and he’ll never live on his own. Her family became distrustful of doctors, embraced natural wellness, and passed those interests on to her. Yon lives in Florida now, where she’s a military wife, mother, and nutritionist with a well-curated Instagram page.

AUDIO: We’ve got two cups of organic strawberries, and I’ve just chopped mine up…

She and her family have worked for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s non-profit organization Children’s Health Defense. It has mounted numerous legal challenges to vaccine mandates and other public health campaigns. Yon says Kennedy has the support of women like her because he listened to their concerns about their childrens’ health.

YON: I think we've never seen someone boldly and openly represent the mothers, and that's such a powerful thing. He has taken the time over his years of activism to truly sit and listen to what people are saying about their kids.

The ideas behind the MAHA movement have been growing for years. If Kennedy takes the helm of HHS, supporters hope their concerns will have a powerful champion.

KENNEDY: There's no issue that should unite us more than this chronic health epidemic. There's no such thing as Republican children or Democratic children. These are our kids.

Lots of people do agree on that point: many Americans, both children and adults, are sick. Data from a 2018 study found that more than half of all Americans have at least one chronic disease: conditions like diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and asthma. More than a quarter have two or more.

But how to fix the problem? That’s harder to find agreement on. Many in the MAHA movement say it will take dismantling existing food and healthcare systems.

AUDIO: Protein, fiber, and healthy fats…

If you search “MAHA Moms” on social media, you’ll see women touting the benefits of home-grown and home-cooked foods… getting outside more… Many avoid everything from antibiotics to flouride to food dyes.

AUDIO: Here's my hydroponically grown butter lettuce…

But it’s vaccine skepticism that has served as a particularly unifying force. Vaccine skeptics voice concern over both the number of recommended childhood vaccines and the ingredients in them. In a child’s first six years, a typical vaccine schedule includes 30 doses—not counting the recommended annual flu or COVID shots.

Kennedy has expressed his own doubts about the safety of vaccines. That doesn’t sit well with many medical professionals and politicians who have opposed his nomination.

Critics fear his influence will mean lower vaccination rates and an increase in diseases. Immunization campaigns are widely credited with allowing more people to survive deadly diseases like rubella and polio. This one in Florida in the 1960s was covered by the British press.

CAMPAIGN: The new vaccine is one of three types. All claim to be an improvement on the famous Salk vaccine. Between them they may make polio as rare as smallpox.

Some sources estimate that in the last 50 years, vaccines have averted 154 million deaths globally.

But MAHA moms like Bella Yon think that has come at a cost. Her objections to vaccines go beyond her personal experience with her brother. She ties them to her faith, too.

YON: There are very questionable ingredients in the vaccines, including those that have been cultured on aborted fetal tissue, which for me, as a Bible believing Christian is an absolute no, no. I also believe that God made us the way he made us, and we don't need things injected into our body to survive and thrive.”

A different aspect of faith drives Toni Krehel, a Florida acupuncturist and medical freedom advocate.

KREHEL: The Make America Healthy Again movement isn't, you know, it's, it's not just about eating right and having good food and that kind of thing. One of the things that this movement is about is exposing the corruption between government and the various industries that are making us so unhealthy.”

She objects to mandatory vaccine requirements like the ones found in public schools based on three main ideas:

KREHEL: The medical freedom, the informed consent, the religious freedom, those are basic human rights.

Krehel believes injecting vaccines into the body is a form of defilement. And says a person who believes the same should always have the right to decline a vaccine.

KREHEL: I mean, you don't have to know anything else. You don't have to be a rocket scientist. You don't have to look at all the studies, anything, all you have to realize that this is a basic human right, and why? Why wouldn't? Why wouldn't we want that?

Exemptions for personal and religious reasons have been the subject of multiple court cases over the years.

And not every mom of children with a chronic illness thinks Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s appointment is the answer to the problem. I talked to several and while they declined to be interviewed on tape, one expressed her belief that genetics, not vaccines, may have played a role in her son's autism. Another said her trust in God's sovereignty compels her not to question her son's diagnosis.

Kennedy said last week that he is not anti-vaccine.

KENNEDY: The President's pledge is not to make some Americans healthy again, but to make all of our people healthy again. There is no single culprit in chronic disease.

He said he supports the measles and polio vaccine. He’s also said he wants to look at vaccine safety data and share his findings.

Regardless of the outcome of the Senate vote on Kennedy, the moms I spoke with expressed hopefulness for an America that is healthier in ways beyond just the vaccine question.

YON: I know these mothers and we will never stop fighting for our children.

Moms like Bella Yon see momentum behind their movement.

YON: …And kind of introduced this conversation that was very much shunned and wasn't being discussed. And I think with all of us together, we will continue to fight for this..

They say they’re not stopping, even if RFK, Jr.'s cabinet opportunity does.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, February 12th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. For the last few weeks the Trump Administration has been running at a fever pitch: stepping up immigration enforcement, refusing aid to foreign organizations that provide or advocate for abortion, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord.

He’s following through on a lot of campaign promises.

But there’s a catch as WORLD Opinions contributor Adam Carrington explains.

ADAM CARRINGTON: President Trump has acted mostly through executive orders, including more than 20 issued on his first day in office. Presidential use of executive orders has come under significant criticism in the 21st century. This criticism has crossed party lines. Whether he be a Republican or a Democrat, political opponents have attacked presidential executive orders with verve. President Trump was criticized during his first term for executive actions such as reallocating money for building a wall along the Southern border. President Biden has sought to cancel significant amounts of student loan debt in this manner as well. One more example, in November of 2014, President Obama’s DACA and DAPA actions garnered a mocking sketch from Saturday Night Live.

SNL CLIP: I’ll create a national park, or a new holiday, or grant legal status to 5 million undocumented immigrants…what?! Yep. That’s what you’re going to do…

Some criticisms of executive orders stem only from opposition to the specific policy or to the president who made them. But some make a different objection, one based not in policy or partisanship but on constitutional grounds.

SNL CLIP: Wait a second, don’t you have to go through Congress at some point?

The SNL sketch pointed to the core constitutional criticism levied at executive orders: that they violate the separation of powers. Our Constitution vests national lawmaking authority in Congress. Yes, the president signs and vetoes bills. But that is a carefully, narrowly limited exception to the general rule. Instead, the president’s core function in our system consists of enforcing the law made by Congress. Executive orders look like the president sidestepping if not outright contradicting Congress by legislating on his own.

Can one make a constitutional defense of executive orders? Yes, there is a legitimate role for them in our system. In Article II, the Constitution vests the entire national executive power in the president. To carry out that massive (and growing) task, the president always has needed subordinates within the executive branch to enforce laws. How does the president exert control over these officers and thus maintain his own responsibility to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”?

One way is that the president can give orders explaining his understanding of federal law and then direct how he desires executive officials to enforce those laws.

That is the original intention of executive orders. They do not make new law. They merely enable the president to direct the enforcement of existing statutes. If you read executive orders, you will notice that they note and interpret statutes and constitutional clauses the president believes enable—even require—the action the executive order commands.

Now, the fact that executive orders can be constitutional does not mean every executive order is constitutional. Presidents can and do grossly overread the discretion a law gives them to act. They can do so to score partisan points. One of President Biden’s biggest student loan cancellations, for example, fell into this category. It was rightly slapped down by the Supreme Court. President Trump’s border wall funding also rested on shaky statutory ground, including being in tension with his own prior statements and efforts to secure new congressional appropriations for the project.

Therefore, we must judge President Trump’s executive orders individually. Each order must be evaluated accordingly. Doing so of course includes assessing whether we think the policy pursued is a good one. However, we also should consider whether the order falls within existing law. Is the president, in other words, fulfilling his role as exerciser of the executive power or intruding into Congress’s legislative sphere. If we do not seriously consider this question of separation of powers, we face the temptation of pursuing beneficial goals in damaging ways. Such an error of omission would undermine the constitutional structure and thus lay the groundwork for future threats to limited government as well as individual liberty.

I’m Adam Carrington.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow:

More than 65-thousand federal employees have accepted buy-outs to leave government. We’ll consider some of the reasons why they did. And, just in time for Valentine’s Day…the Great American Songbook and the music of romance. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

“O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!” —Psalms 39:4

Go now in grace and peace.

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