The way the US political system works is that the legislative passes laws, the executive enforces laws, and the judicial interprets laws and ensures the constitutionality/legality of it all. This is relevant because in this scenario each body plays a critical role, but they 'beat' each other in different ways, almost like a game of rock, paper, scissors. The executive beats the legislative by vetoing laws, the judicial beats the executive by blocking/halting orders/enforcements of laws, and the legislative can beat the judiciary by passing new laws or even changing the constitution (though there you'd also need the states' approval).

This simplifies some things (like the fact that congress can beat the executive by overriding a veto), but I think generally captures the essence of the system. And a key point here is that judicial beats executive. The executive can interpret a law however they want, but if the judiciary disagrees then the judiciary wins. So nothing needs to be "used" to disregard the judiciary's interpretation of laws - it simply doesn't matter what the executive's interpretation of a law - that's the role of the judiciary.

The reason for this law is simply to bring the various agencies under executive authority in line. Instead of each individual organization interpreting the law (generally around the limits of their powers) at their own discretion, those interpretations will now need to pass through the attorney general.

Because including them would cause an immediate worldwide economic crisis as everyone pulls their money from US bonds.

He’s scared of them.

If he were to mess with the Fed it would impact Wall Street, particularly by making the market indices go down.

For whatever reason he cares about that in ways he doesn’t care about his approval ratings or the historical norms of the office. See how fast he reached a deal on tariffs earlier in the month when the markets reacted to them? Since then they’ve been slowly leading tariffs to get the message out so when the tariffs come the market will have priced it in.

He’ll get to the Fed. But it won’t be overnight. The administration will start messaging it and choreographing the change long enough before so it won’t spook Wall Street.

The "Federal Reserve" is not a government entity is it? I thought it was a private banking cartel?

They're not fully exempted, the order does apply to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in connection with its conduct and authorities directly related to its supervision and regulation of financial institutions.

In other words, when it comes to banking regulation, the President has the final say.

The Fed is statutorily independent, and organized in a manner that the current Court has validated (unlike the CFPB). Just like Trump can't assert legislative superiority over Congress, he cannot unilaterally compromise the independence of the Fed.

I agree with Kasey, too, but I think the exception here is mostly legalese.

It seems to me that the operative line:

> The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch.

conveys respect to the judiciary branch, and states that this only applies to situations where the executive branch is interpreting laws in isolation during their enforcement of them (which happens quite often).

However, following that line:

> No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law, including but not limited to the issuance of regulations, guidance, and positions advanced in litigation, unless authorized to do so by the President or in writing by the Attorney General.

Feels weirder, because it implies that when executive branch employees find themselves between a rock and a hard place on when a law is interpreted differently between the President and Judicial branches they must follow the Presidential interpretation; or they'll presumably be fired.

The way I see it: This isn't a broad departure from the behavior of the system two weeks ago. The office of the President, especially under Trump, has regularly taken the action of replacing employees who are unaligned with the President's agenda. When the rubber hits the road and we get to a material matter that the President and the Judicial branch disagree on, what it might come down to is: the Judicial branch can bring a suit against the employees to follow their interpretation, but the President could fire them if they do, and the President could pardon them if they instead follow the Presidential way. That's, essentially, the same situation the American system has been in for hundreds of years; the only difference right now is that we have a President who might actually do that.

Which draws back to something I've said a few times: Presidents from both parties, over the past 50 years, but especially Bush and Obama, have been relentless in interpreting the law in a direction which centralizes power into the Executive. The "normalcy" of the office until Trump was never enforced through legality; it was only decorum. It was only a matter of time before someone rejected this decorum, born out of congressional deadlock and the dire state of many Americans' wellbeing, to make the government and executive branch actually do something about it.

This isn't the first time America has had to face this question; not even close. Trump isn't exposing new weaknesses in our system; the weaknesses have always been there. Worcester v. Georgia (1832) is a great example. It ended with the President saying F.U. to the Supreme Court, refusing to enforce one of their interpretations, and, well, the Trail of Tears happened.

"Weakness", however, is an interesting term to deploy for this; it implies that the default state of the American system is that you need supermajority alignment for the government to accomplish anything, and if actors in the system find a legal way around that requirement, its a "weakness". Phrased more simply: Strength is inaction, Weakness is action. Of course, many Americans would disagree with any assertion that this is desirable, especially in the unstable geopolitical and economic situation we're in. Trump was elected, by majority electoral and popular vote, to take action; most Americans would not call the cracks he is cleaving open to accomplish his agenda a "weakness" of the system.

Inflation is an extreme handout to the wealthy.

Money is by definition zero sum, otherwise the word "inflation" would have no meaning. There are good questions around what an over leveraged loan is, but fundamentally, the supply of money is to some degree fixed at any given moment.

The wealthy and powerful keep their money in tax benefited, inflation tracking assets. Many of those assets are stocks, and a major business cost is labor. Wages are generally not inflation tracking. That amplifies the benefit of inflation to the wealthy. So the buying power lost by suppressed wages and devalued savings, as well as the devaluing of all money currently in flight such as paychecks, is exactly gained by those with wealth/ownership. Inflation also makes loan's cheaper to pay off, further benefiting those with enough assets to get a loan.

When the market stagnates or companies freeze hiring or do mass layoffs, it puts employees in an even worse negotiating position resulting in even more suppressed wages past the first order effect of inflation.

So what's even better for the rich than tax breaks is inflation.

The fed is the beating heart of the economy, it pumps money through its sluices.

The fed is in many ways the Balrog deep in Moria.

Oligarchs do answer to other oligarchs, even if they don't answer to law, and there's a good chance that many of them see the impending potential disaster of either stagflation -- people won't have enough money to buy goods and the economy stalls and maybe doesn't restart, or hyperinflation -- the definitive end of American hegemony as countries move to a different reserve currency and America is no longer able to fund its military. The economy is also directly tied, if not most directly tied, to the legitimacy of the ruling regime, so a policy of choosing loyalists over qualifications or letting it be corrupted by someone selling out tomorrow for today is likely to lead to actual civil unrest instead of performative civil unrest.

My guess is that the finance business oligarchs see it as a red line because the moment the fed is corrupted, it's no longer their fed, but Trump's fed, and that will be equivalent to the moment Putin gathered all of Russia's oligarchs, with one of them in a diminutive cage in a court room, and then said "half" and held out his ring with the implication of the power relationship being clear (part of the greater story of the Magnitsky act).

It's also worth noting that normally you would get capital flight once the wealthy get scared, but the US has told every foreign country that American citizens in that country are under American jurisdiction and therefore all wealth must be reported to the US government, so while in the past an oligarch might have been happy to cause civil unrest with their unchecked greed, America's deep financial reach means that many will pay a hefty price, if they are even allowed exfiltrate the majority of their fortunes at all, binding them to the outcome of fed decisions as well.

But I'm very far from an expert, so probably wrong about some of that.

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