The Barron Trump deflection
Republicans are feigning outrage because they don't want to talk about King Trump
The House Judiciary Committee's impeachment hearing Wednesday invited four legal experts to make cases for and against impeaching President Trump. To hear many of the president's allies tell it, however, they mostly convened to bully his youngest son, 13-year-old Barron Trump.
"When you invoke the president's son's name here," declared Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) during the hearing, "that does not lend credibility to your argument. It makes you look mean." The White House condemned the mention of Barron as a "classless" invasion of the boy's privacy which used him as a "punchline." House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called it an "absolutely disgraceful" attack, and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) declared it "gross and shameful." Barron's mother, first lady Melania Trump, rushed to her son's defense, tweeting that the witness who mentioned him "should be ashamed of [her] very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it."
What monstrous remark — what unusual cruelty — provoked such a backlash? Simply this: "Contrary to what President Trump has said, Article 2 [of the Constitution] does not give him the power to do anything he wants," said Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan. "I'll just give you one example that shows you the difference between him and a king, which is, the Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility, so while the president can name his son Barron, he can't make him a baron."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Huh. It's almost like Trump's defenders are focusing on a harmless joke to deflect the substance of Karlan's entirely valid criticism. It's almost like, after decades of Republican rhetoric about the necessity of small government and the rule of law, they're desperate to distract from their embrace of a president who hasn't a whit of use for either.
It is a matter of broad consensus in American politics that politicians' minor children are off-limits, whatever one thinks of their parents. A similar prohibition often extends to adult family members, provided they are not public figures or suspected of criminal behavior, and it includes swipes at spouses' appearances, too. This is a good thing. The Bush and Obama daughters deserved protection from the animosity directed at their fathers, and Barron Trump deserves the same. (Trump's older children — Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric — have deliberately entered public life, including government service in Ivanka's case, and thus are not afforded the same shield. Tiffany Trump, though an adult, is to my mind better kept closer to Barron's status than that of her older siblings.)
All that is to say: Had Karlan actually put a mean and classless attack on Barron Trump in the House record, I would share this GOP outrage. Had she actually made him a punchline, it would indeed be disgraceful. But what Karlan said was barely a joke, and certainly not one at Barron's expense. I imagine Karlan anticipated it would be received as a mildly amusing but otherwise anodyne illustration of an argument about the constitutional scope of executive power. And I imagine that because that is what it was.
Karlan later apologized for her remark, which was gracious but unnecessary. Her point on presidential authority cannot be made too much, whether about Trump in particular or the imperial presidency more broadly.
"I have an Article 2, where I have to the right to do whatever I want as president," Trump said this past summer in the speech Karlan referenced. This is false. So far from granting the president the right to do whatever he wants, Article 2 describes a limited administrative position which would be unrecognizable to the Constitution's framers in its modern form — or, I should say, would be recognizable as something far closer to an absolute monarch, the king of Karlan's comments, than the role they attempted to create.
Trump's presidency has exposed anew the dangers of a too-powerful executive, but the problem is not unique to his presidency. What is unique is the extent to which the Republican Party has openly abandoned decades of self-description as the faction of limited, constitutional government in its enthusiasm for Trump.
In Washington, short-sighted GOP lawmakers are unwilling to constrain the president on the grounds that, as Trump himself put it earlier this year, Democrats are "going to do whatever they do if they get into power" (almost certainly correct), so Republicans may as well get theirs while they can (wrong and reprehensible). Likewise, among Republican voters, Pew Research finds spiking support for the notion that the president could more easily solve the country's problems if he "didn't have to worry so much about Congress and the courts." Congress is already so toothless it is troubling to imagine what kind of unfettered ruler they'd prefer.
"Contrary to what President Trump has said, Article 2 does not give him the power to do anything he wants." That, not a bland aside about Barron Trump, was the point of Karlan's remark — and the point both sides of the aisle desperately need to hear. The Republican reaction demonstrates they aren't interested in listening.
Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
'Biden is smart to keep the border-security pressure on'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Bird flu worries mount as virus found in milk, cows
Speed Read The FDA found traces of the virus in pasteurized grocery store milk
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Palazzo Durazzo Suites in Genoa: a palatial gem in northern Italy
The Week Recommends Live your Italian dream in this astonishing and recently restored palace in the heart of the city
By Nick Hendry Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published
-
More covfefe: is the world ready for a second Donald Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question Republican's re-election would be a 'nightmare' scenario for Europe, Ukraine and the West
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published