Is Congress Checking Trump?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the separation of powers outlined by the U.S. Constitution between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. Pundits say that President Donald Trump rolled over Congress. James Curry, professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame who specializes in Congress and U.S. policymaking, thinks the story is wrong. 

Curry shared the following thoughts on the topic in an article published in the Deseret News. He suggests that Americans should look past the headlines to see a different picture and gives three examples to show how the legislative branch is checking the executive branch.

1. Pushing back on nominees

Consider the president’s efforts to reshape the executive branch. In 2025, while Elon Musk’s DOGE efforts dominated the news, the Republican-led Senate was quietly blocking a record number of the president’s nominees. There were no dramatic floor votes. The nominations simply sat until the White House gave up and pulled them.

Trump withdrew 57 executive branch nominations in 2025… Every withdrawn nomination is a fight the president lost without anyone seeing a punch thrown.

2. Pushing back on mass layoffs

Congress also put a halt to the aggressive workforce reductions that characterized the first several months of the second Trump administration. Through layoffs, buyouts and early retirements, the administration pushed out more than 200,000 federal employees in the first 10 months of 2025.

Then Congress stepped in. The November 2025 bill ending the longest government shutdown in American history barred agencies from any further mass layoffs while it was in effect, and lawmakers have kept up that pressure in legislation since.

By March 2026, the government was hiring again, bringing back workers who had left and restaffing agencies that had been gutted. The exceptions tell the story. USAID and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting stayed dead because Congress itself voted to kill them.

3. Pushing back on aggressive spending cuts

Congress has also done more to push back on the Trump administration’s efforts to unilaterally slash federal spending than it may seem. In 2025, the administration cut funding for science and health research, foreign aid, clean energy, and more.

Through the appropriations process, however, Congress has put much of it back. Despite DOGE, federal spending actually rose from 2024 to 2025, and most programs are funded at roughly Biden-era levels.

The cuts that stuck are mostly the ones Congress approved. That is exactly how the Constitution says spending decisions should be made.

Congress has moved to check President Donald Trump in other ways as well. It put an end to the president’s $1.8 billion “weaponization” fund, which would have funneled money to his political allies. Democratic and Republican senators refused to back Trump’s SAVE Act, which would have allowed the Trump administration unprecedented influence over who can and cannot vote in federal elections. And this summer, Congress passed the largest housing affordability bill in decades with broad bipartisan support, despite opposition from President Donald Trump.

Curry explained that the pushback goes unnoticed because “presidents and Congress move at different speeds. A president can act with the stroke of a pen. Congress has 535 members, two chambers and no single voice. It acts by holding coalitions and passing laws, which takes months, sometimes years.”

Curry continued by explaining that the president has weeks, months, or years to push his plan before Congress responds, and the topic is already old news. “But those slow, quiet moves are the system working as designed. The separation of powers was never meant to be an alarm with tripwires. Congress responds through legislation, and it responds in proportion to what voters demand.” He stated that the “system is alive and well. We just have to know where to look.”