Inventing Emergencies Is Trump’s Superpower
By itself, President Trump misstating facts is hardly a news event. He became a master of hype while working as a real-estate developer and reality-TV host; now, he invariably exaggerates or fabricates descriptions of objective reality to fit his own purposes. Most often, Trump twists or simply makes up facts to dramatize the unbelievable depravity of his opponents (e.g., his unsupported assertions that millions of non-citizens cast illegal votes for Democrats in national elections) or the world-historical brilliance of his own accomplishments (e.g., the booming economy he claims to have built, notwithstanding contrary evidence from the Bureau of Labor Statistics). Personally, it troubles me that the chief executive of my country lies through his teeth so very often. But, apparently, Trump’s fans, who are said to “take him seriously but not literally,” aren’t bothered at all and may derive amused pleasure from the very height of his tall tales.
During his second term, however, Trump’s penchant for making stuff up has assumed a central role in his relentless efforts to expand presidential powers at the expense of Congress, the courts, and Americans’ liberties. That’s because he is relying more than any of his predecessors on asserting emergency powers in circumstances where there is no actual emergency, as the Associated Press reported in June:
Despite insisting that the United States is rebounding from calamity under his watch, President Donald Trump is harnessing emergency powers unlike any of his predecessors.
Whether it’s leveling punishing tariffs, deploying troops to the border or sidelining environmental regulations, Trump has relied on rules and laws intended only for use in extraordinary circumstances like war and invasion.
An analysis by The Associated Press shows that 30 of Trump’s 150 executive orders have cited some kind of emergency power or authority, a rate that far outpaces his recent predecessors.
He shows no signs of slowing down, as his most recent astounding power grab, the takeover of law enforcement in the District of Columbia, shows. Even by Trump’s standards, however, his claims of a crime emergency in D.C. requires a lot of mendacity. In his press conference announcing the takeover, Trump tossed out a pastiche of not-so-recent crime-trend statistics layered with inflammatory rhetoric about the sheer hellishness of life in Washington. Fact-checkers had a field day:
MSNBC fact checks Trump live on the screen as he’s lying. pic.twitter.com/qSVszU8h8x
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) August 11, 2025
By virtually any standard, violent crime in D.C. is falling, not rising, and there’s no “emergency” requiring unprecedented federal intervention in local law enforcement and abrogation of a half-century tradition of home rule. However, the 1973 congressional statute that gave Washington home rule provides for a temporary (but extendable) federal takeover of Washington’s police force in cases of a presidentially declared emergency. So facts be damned, that’s what Trump declared, just as he has declared fake emergencies to justify his usurpations of congressional powers over tariffs and trade, and his authoritarian measures to detain and deport immigrants.
Inventing emergencies isn’t just a strategy to mobilize Trump’s supporters and intimidate his opponents — it’s his superpower, giving him permission slips to sweep aside laws, policies, precedents, and other public institutions that stand in his way. Emergency provisions are invariably drafted with more responsible presidents in mind, and courts will typically give any president considerable deference, even if they suspect or even know this president is fabricating pretexts in order to inflate his own power.
So Trump’s extraordinary disregard for verifiable facts (most often expressed, ironically, via his Truth Social platform) is more precious to him than all the gold with which he has adorned the White House. It’s an emergency, in law if not in fact, if the president says it is. And so Trump gets to play police chief and emperor in the city he considers Mar-a-Lago on the Potomac.