Dem
52
Ties
2
GOP
46
Donald Trump has a strategy he must have learned from the Internet: Move fast and break things. Trump knows from long experience that the courts are horribly slow, often taking many years to adjudicate anything. He is exploiting that to the hilt in many ways. Congress has the power to levy tariffs, but he just does it himself, begins collecting them, and it is a year or more before the courts get around to saying: "You can't do that." He destroys agencies Congress created and by the time the courts get around to deciding what to do, the agencies are gone.
The latest example is the ballroom. Trump has a 250-person crew working 20 hours a day, 7 days a week to complete the ballroom. The Supreme Court has ruled that one preservation group suing to block construction didn't have standing to sue, but it went out of its way to say that it hasn't ruled on the merits of the case. By the time it does rule, the construction may be (almost) complete. Suppose the justices rule that it is illegal. Then what? Will they order it torn down? Very unlikely. Will they fine or imprison Trump for breaking law? Impossible. He will simply have outrun the law—again. If the Court does eventually rule that he had no authority to tear down the East Wing in the first place, conceivably he could be subject to civil suits for damages after he leaves office. If the Court rules that a president can knock down part of the White House just because he wants to, that is practically an engraved invitation to the next Democratic president to knock down the ballroom.
This strategy seems to work for Trump, so expect more of it in the future. If Democrats take over Congress in January, Trump will know that he won't be able to get any of his pet projects through Congress, so he will probably double down on his strategy: Just do it, get sued, and try to finish the project before the courts rule he didn't have the authority to do it in the first place. In many cases, there is no practical way to undo it. For Trump, having the project completed, even if there is a piece of paper saying it wasn't allowed, is good enough. (V)