Why has Donald Trump transformed his foreign policy from isolationist to interventionist?
He doesn’t have some newfound curiosity in foreign affairs. Nor does he now deeply care about the global order. He’s shifted his focus for a different reason entirely: because his domestic agenda keeps getting stymied by checks and balances.
Unlike at home, Trump has few restraints on the global stage. He likes that environment much more.
He’s a bull who needs his China shop.
America’s domestic political system is resisting Trump more than many think. Sure, he’s gotten things done and caused lots of trouble. And to the victims of his abuses, the restraints on his power are far too weak.
But Trump’s domestic agenda has been muddled and underwhelming, especially for a president whose party controls Congress.
This is true even when the noise is screeching. Take DOGE, Trump’s partnership with Elon Musk. Remember how it was supposed to dramatically reduce federal spending?
For all its sound and fury, DOGE was largely negated by the very president who authorized it. About Trump's 2025 spending bill, Musk asked: “What’s the point of DOGE if the government’s just going to add $5 trillion more in debt?”
Moreover, while many Republicans slavishly acquiesce to Trump, not all of them do. Republican senators are rejecting his demand to end the filibuster. House Republicans are investigating the Epstein files.
The courts, for their part, rule against Trump regularly, including striking down his signature tariffs policy. His effort to undo birthright citizenship will likely soon meet the same fate.
State and local governments are likewise resisting Trump. Just look at California’s and Virginia’s broad gerrymanders in response to his (and his fellow Republicans’) election machinations.
The media–traditional and independent alike–have been fierce, notwithstanding Trump’s threats (and lawsuits). And the people in the streets, like in Minnesota, have made their voices heard.
Polling data suggests that Democrats will take the House in November. If they do, Trump will likely be impeached (again), and his legislative agenda will be in tatters.
Indeed, Trump has worthy opponents across American society thwarting his domestic ambitions.
Every single day.
But foreign policy, alas, is different. These checks don’t work internationally. A simple comparison illustrates the point: The same president who can’t get his political rival, Adam Schiff, indicted can unleash the might of America’s military on a whim.
Trump can largely do what he wants globally–including blowing up suspicious ships, taking out heads of state, invading sovereign nations, and threatening to end a civilization on social media.
It’s not supposed to work this way. The United States Constitution is ambiguous in numerous respects. But with declaring war, it’s clear: Article 1, Section 8 grants to Congress, not the president, “The power to declare war.”
“Only Congress can declare war,” Republican Senator Rand Paul said in March while protesting the Iran invasion. “That’s not my opinion. That's Article 1 of the Constitution … History will not be kind to a Congress that gave away its most solemn responsibility.”
As Trump's supporters emphasize, multiple presidents have initiated hostilities without congressional support. But numerous others have gone to Congress, as George W. Bush did in 2002 before the Iraq war.
One virtue of working with Congress before declaring war is that the public debate is more robust. Today, the American people are left to guess why Trump invaded Iran.
When he did so, without first seeking congressional authorization, he violated Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
It’s that simple. Yet there was no practical way to stop him.
Congress moves far too slowly to block an aggressive commander-in-chief. And the courts can only do so much. Judges can force Trump to refund his tariffs, for example, but they can’t unwind the invasion of another country.
Ultimately, the person in the Oval Office is what matters most. As John Adams put it long ago, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality … [which] would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.”
Trump’s global ambitions flow from his domestic frustrations. The way to restrain him should be to follow the Constitution. That is, unfortunately, like trying to catch a whale with a fishing net.
Edward Larson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning legal historian, and William Cooper is an attorney and author. They cohost the podcast How Our Constitution Works And Why It Doesn't.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.