WATCH: “Trump Thinks He is a King” Protect Democracy and Republicans for the Rule of Law Release New Ad

On April 15, 2020, Protect Democracy and Republicans for the Rule of Law released a new ad challenging President Trump’s explicit claims of “total” power over the states. No president has “total” power; that’s exactly the opposite of the way our American democracy works. The video explains that Trump is not king, and aired during Fox & Friends on April 15. Watch the ad here.

As a part of Protect Democracy’s work pushing back on President Trump’s claims of total immunity from accountability, Protect Democracy and Republicans for the Rule of Law are partnering on the Presidential Accountability Project to fight against arbitrary uses of presidential power and to uphold the laws of the constitution. This project aims to expose the ways in which President Trump’s tactics endanger the very future of our democracy.

One foundational tenet of our democracy is that everyone must follow the law, including the president. The framers of the constitution designed a system of checks and balances to ensure that no one branch of government could wield unfettered power over the others. 

But President Trump and his lawyers are disregarding and undermining that system by playing a shell game with Congress, the courts and the states. Every time anyone tries to hold President Trump accountable, he evades oversight by claiming he’s only accountable to another government entity. Then, when that second entity tries to act, President Trump insists that actually it is only another government entity that can check his power. When taken together, these slights of hand reveal an effort to subvert the very foundation of our democracy by lifting the president above the law. In President Trump’s view, no one can hold the president accountable. 

Protect Democracy and Republicans for the Rule of Law’s Presidential Accountability Project will continue to release ads and digital content aimed at exposing President Trump’s efforts to evade oversight and accountability. So far, the ads have received strong coverage including claiming the #1 trending story spot on Apple News, and features in The Hill and The Huffington Post. 

If the president’s claims of total power and authority aren’t challenged, future presidents will be given carte blanche to do whatever they want, without fear of oversight from the courts or Congress. See more of Protect Democracy’s work to push back on the shell game here.