The U.S. Constitution According to Donald Trump

Since 2015, Donald J. Trump has become a key player in U.S. political system, having impact not only on governance in the United States, but also on the process of constitutional interpretation. Obviously, each U.S. president, as the head of state and chief executive, plays an important role as both the institution, a politician, and an individual, preserving and protecting U.S. Constitution, which may be directly derived from the text of presidential oath or the supremacy of the document. However, in recent decades, presidents have become more active in their role as constitutional interpreters, thus strengthening the process called constitutionalization of politics (Laidler, Stolicki, Jakubiak, Sokołowski 2025), where non-judicial actors become involved in determining the meaning and scope of constitutional values and provisions. The main purpose of the paper is to define what Donald J. Trump – as a candidate to the office of president, as well as the chief executive – believes the U.S. Constitution means, both as a formal document and a catalogue of values and provisions. By applying the theories of constitutionalization of politics, as well as politicization of justice, the author aims at determining if Trump’s approach towards constitutional interpretation, reflected several times by his references to originalism and textualism, corresponds with his understanding of what the Constitution means, especially with respect to the scope of presidential powers and the scope of rights and freedoms of individuals. The research will use methods characteristic for a few disciplines, such as political science, law, international relations and security studies, and it will include analysis Trump’s activities, statements and rhetoric from his appearance as a presidential candidate, through his first tenure as president, the period of Joe Biden’s presidency, and the first year of Trump’s second tenure. The research findings may reveal how Donald Trump’s reading of the Constitution serves as a legitimization of his policies, and what impact his constitutional interpretation has on the state of democracy and the rule of law in the United States, as well as other (European) states facing similar challenges.