Trump’s Military Payroll Gambit Is a Baldly Illegal Seizure of Power

The Treasury is supposed to listen to Congress when deciding where that money goes. Musk, a South African-born billionaire with little evident understanding of American civics or political culture, had a different idea. He unilaterally blocked large swaths of federal spending under the spurious premise that he was rooting out fraud and waste. Trump and Bessent not only didn’t stop him, they egged him on. Hence the “legal fiction”: It turns out that the power of the purse actually belongs to whoever holds the purse.

Musk is no longer part of the federal government, but his lawless vision remains. Trump has increasingly taken the view that he, not Congress, decides where and how public money is collected and spent. On the revenue side, he began by imposing billions of dollars of tariffs on American businesses and consumers through an almost certainly illegal interpretation of a 1977 law. The Supreme Court is holding oral arguments on the matter in November and will decide its ultimate legality.

On the spending side, the Trump administration began by targeting discretionary programs—those where he does have some legal leeway—before moving on to bigger mandatory targets. Congress passed laws to create the Department of Education, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and other federal agencies. Trump and Russell Vought, the director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, have demolished those agencies anyway by firing employees and halting most of their operations.