Before his inauguration, Donald Trump promised to issue a total of 100 or so executive orders once he regained the presidency. These orders reset government policy on everything from immigration enforcement to diversity initiatives to environmental regulation. They also aim to undo much of Joe Biden’s presidential legacy.
Trump is not the first U.S. president to issue an executive order, and he certainly won’t be the last. My own research shows executive orders have been a mainstay in American politics – with limitations.
What is an executive order?
Though the Constitution plainly articulates familiar presidential tools like vetoes and appointments, the real executive power comes from reading between the lines.
Presidents have long interpreted the Constitution’s Article 2 clauses – like “the executive power shall be vested in a President” and “he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed” – to give them total authority to enforce the law through the executive branch, by any means necessary.
One leading way they do that is through executive orders, which are presidential written directives to agencies on how to implement the law. The courts view them as legally valid unless they violate the Constitution or existing statutes.
Executive orders, like other unilateral actions, allow presidents to make policy outside of the regular lawmaking process.This leaves Congress, notoriously polarized and gridlocked, to respond.
Thus, executive orders are unilateral actions that give presidents several advantages, allowing them to move first and act alone in policymaking.
How have they historically been used?
Every U.S. president has issued executive orders since they were first systematically cataloged in 1905.
In March of 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized President Obama’s use of executive orders.
“Executive orders sort of came about more recently. Nobody ever heard of an executive order. Then all of a sudden Obama – because he couldn’t get anybody to agree with him – he starts signing them like they’re butter,” Trump said. “So I want to do away with executive orders for the most part.”
Little in this statement is true.
Obama signed fewer orders than his predecessors – averaging 35 per year. Trump issued an average of 55 per year.
Against conventional wisdom, presidents have relied less on executive orders over time. Indeed, modern presidents used drastically fewer orders per year – an average of 59 – than their pre-World War II counterparts, who averaged 314.
Executive orders have been used for everything from routine federal workplace policies like ethics pledges to the controversial 2017 travel ban restricting entry into the United States.
They have been used to manage public lands, the economy, the civil service and federal contractors, and to respond to various crises such as the Iran hostage situation and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Presidents often use them to advance their biggest agenda items, by creating task forces or policy initiatives and directing rulemaking, the process for formally translating laws into codified policy.
Limitations in their use
Why don’t presidents always issue executive orders, a seemingly powerful policy device? Because they come with serious constraints.
First, executive orders may not be as unilateral as they seem. Drafting an order involves a time-consuming bargaining process with various agencies negotiating its content.
Second, if they are issued without proper legal authority, executive orders can be overturned by the courts – although that happens infrequently.
Trump’s 2017 travel ban faced several legal challenges before it was written in a way to satisfy the court. Many of his initial orders, on the other hand, didn’t face legal scrutiny because they simply requested agencies to work within their existing authority to change important policies like health care and immigration.
Congress is another barrier, as they give presidents the legal authority to make policy in a certain area. By withholding that authority, Congress can deter presidents from issuing executive orders on certain issues. If the president issues the order anyway, the courts can overturn it.
Legislators can also punish presidents for issuing executive orders they do not like by sabotaging their legislative agendas and nominees or defunding their programs.
Even a polarized Congress can find ways to sanction a president for an executive order they don’t like. For example, a committee can hold an oversight hearing or launch an investigation – both of which can decrease a president’s public approval rating.
Congresses of today are equipped to impose these constraints and they do so more often on ideologically opposed administrations. This is why scholars find modern presidents issue fewer executive orders under divided government, contrary to popular media narratives that present executive orders as a president’s way of circumventing Congress.
Finally, executive orders are not the last word in policy. They can be easily revoked.
New presidents often reverse previous orders, particularly those of political opponents. Biden, for instance, quickly revoked Trump’s directives that excluded undocumented immigrants from the U.S. Census.
All recent presidents have issued revocations, especially in their first year. They face barriers in doing so, however, including public opinion, Congress and legal limitations.
Regardless, executive orders are not as durable as laws or regulations.
Constraints on Trump
Some of Trump’s executive orders, particularly those focused on the economy, will require legislation since Congress holds the purse strings.
Though Trump inherits a Republican House and Senate, their majorities are marginal, and moderate party dissenters may frustrate his agenda. Even so, he will undoubtedly use all available legal authority to unilaterally transform his goals into government policy.
But then again, these directives may be undone by the courts – or by the next president with the stroke of a pen.
Sharece Thrower is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. Her research focuses on how both Congress and the courts constrain the president’s use of various policy instruments such as executive orders, signing statements, rule making and regulatory review.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.