Publishers Weekly
05/04/2020
Yoo (coauthor, Striking Power), a UC Berkeley law professor and former justice department official under George W. Bush, casts Donald Trump as a vigorous defender of “the constitutional order” in this sober-minded yet myopic account. Walking back his own previous warnings that the Trump administration represented “executive power run amok,” Yoo argues that Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey, successful pushback against the special counsel inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election and impeachment over the Ukraine affair, and “conservative makeover of the federal courts,” are all in line with the Framers’ vision of an “energetic unitary executive” with the authority to act quickly and decisively in matters of national interest while resisting legislative and judicial branch overreach. Yoo critiques Trump’s antiimmigration and protectionist trade policies, yet defends his legal right to enact them, and accuses Democratic lawmakers of posing the graver threat to the Constitution by calling for universal health care, wealth taxes, the elimination of the Electoral College, and the granting of “vast new powers” to “unaccountable” government agencies. Yoo cherry-picks historical evidence to support his arguments, treats the question of Trump’s actual motives as unimportant, and presents debatable claims, including that the post–Great Recession economy had recovered “listlessly” before Trump took office, as fact. This one-sided defense of the Trump presidency won’t change minds. (July)
From the Publisher
Donald Trump’s critics claim that he ignores the Constitution. But in a persuasive analysis, constitutional scholar John Yoo argues just the opposite. Trump may be an unlikely constitutionalist, but he certainly has done more than recent presidents in restoring executive powers as originally envisioned by the Founders from insidious encroachment by a progressive Congress and courts...An engaging, completely original, and superbly researched and argued analysis from one of America’s top legal minds that elevates the debate through Yoo’s mastery of history, jurisprudence, and dispassionate scholarship.”
––Victor Davis Hanson, the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, author of The Case for Trump
“Dreaded as a destructive demagogue, Donald Trump turns out to be a historically significant defender of the American constitutional order, of the Framers’ unique vision of executive vigor mindful of the law’s limits. No one could better elucidate this unlikely and welcome development than John Yoo, a Trump-skeptic and vitally important scholar of presidential power in our constitutional order. Defender in Chief is timely, brilliantly argued, and ultimately persuasive.”
––Andrew C. McCarthy, New York Times bestselling author and National Review contributing editor
“Why defend presidential power? Because, as counterintuitive as it might seem, energy in the executive actually advances individual freedom by curbing the threats of legislative and bureaucratic tyranny. The Founders understood this, and John Yoo’s Defender in Chief is an important reminder of the delicate balance of power our Constitution strikes.”
––Leonard Leo, co-chairman of the board of directors of the Federalist Society
