Merkley’s Marathon Address Decried Trump’s “Authoritarian Grip”—But Executive Overreach Didn’t Start With Him

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D–Ore.) took to the Senate floor on Tuesday around 6:30 p.m. to “ring the alarm” on what he described as President Donald Trump’s “tightening authoritarian grip on the country.” Over the course of his nearly 23-hour speech—the second-longest in Senate history—Merkley accused the Trump administration of undermining checks and balances, attacking free speech and the press, politicizing the Justice Department, and using the military to suppress dissent. 

Wrapping up his speech Wednesday evening, Merkley stated: “The president believes he is the king of this country and he can control everything, regardless of what the law says.” These comments come in the wake of last weekend’s “No Kings” protests and an appeals court decision from earlier this week that will allow Trump to deploy the National Guard to Portland, Oregon.

“I’m holding the Senate floor to protest Trump’s grave threats to democracy,” Merkley said in his address, declaring: “We cannot pretend this is normal,” strongly implying that, in failing to act, the Senate itself is complicit in enabling Trump’s authoritarian drift. 

Merkley’s warnings are hardly unfounded. The Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard into U.S. cities, politicization of the Justice Department, and sweeping use of executive authority over immigration enforcement have all raised legitimate constitutional concerns and questions about how much power the executive branch should wield. But while Merkley frames these actions as an almost uniquely Trump-era phenomenon, the roots of executive overreach run far deeper. 

For years, Democrats and Republicans in Congress have signed off on policies that expanded executive power, and presidents from both parties have taken advantage of this broad authority. 

The Biden administration, for instance, used soaring pandemic-era emergency orders to justify vaccine mandates and heavy-handed intervention in the U.S. economy. It also pressured social media platforms to suppress “misinformation.” These moves were met with little resistance from many Democrats, including Merkley, who supported sweeping federal relief packages and voted to keep emergency measures in place even after COVID-19 was largely contained. He also joined colleagues in urging social media companies to curb “misinformation” during the 2024 election, aligning with the Biden administration’s broader agenda to regulate online speech. 

Merkley is right to call out Trump’s actions, but executive overreach has been a problem long before Trump was reelected. And unless lawmakers move to rein in the executive branch and shrink the size of government, this overreach will continue to be a problem long after Trump leaves office.