A conservative columnist argued this week that congressional inaction has pushed President Donald Trump to repeatedly invoke emergency powers to address a range of policy areas, from tariffs and immigration to cartel violence and housing.
In an opinion published by the New York Post, Libby Emmons, editor-in-chief of The Post Millennial, wrote that the National Emergencies Act of 1976 has become a tool of necessity because members of Congress "are too consumed with staging victimhood pageants and crying on the Capitol steps to pass laws and demand their enforcement." Emmons cited Trump’s use of emergency declarations to impose tariffs, pursue immigration enforcement and target cartel activity, and said the president was considering declaring a national housing emergency.
Emmons argued that many of the policy moves now justified by emergency authority historically would fall to Congress, which can legislate directly or delegate specific powers to the executive. On tariffs, she said Congress could have expressly granted authority but instead left the matter to the courts while the administration relied on emergency powers. She also wrote that slim Republican majorities and partisan pressure on both parties have reduced lawmakers’ willingness to compromise on consequential legislation.
The column characterizes the situation as a broader breakdown in governing: elected representatives, Emmons wrote, focus more on public statements, social media and symbolic actions than on producing and defending legislative outcomes. She criticized lawmakers for relying on private security in the capital and for not addressing local problems that the president has highlighted, including homelessness and rising crime in Washington, D.C., which she said Trump saw as a personal affront when hosting foreign leaders.
Emmons framed the administration’s actions as risky but potentially consequential. "Trump is taking a huge risk by staking his presidency on handling each of these issues with emergency powers," she wrote, adding that success would change perceptions about who deserves credit and failure would make the president politically vulnerable.
The opinion also stressed that unilateral executive action is not the ideal and acknowledged that the United States was designed to operate through representative lawmaking. "Governing by emergency, tackling one crisis after another with executive power, is not how our system was designed to work," Emmons wrote, while placing responsibility for that shift on congressional inaction.
Her piece said that many recent uses of emergency authority have spawned litigation. Emmons portrayed courts as the de facto arbiter of disputed policy when Congress declines to act, a point that has figured prominently in other public debates about the separation of powers and the scope of presidential authority under the National Emergencies Act.
The opinion reflected a view that if Congress fails to legislate on issues such as trade, immigration and public safety, presidents will continue to use executive tools to advance policy. It did not offer a legislative roadmap nor detailed proposals for how Congress might reclaim those responsibilities, framing the critique primarily as a call for lawmakers to exercise their constitutional role.
The column appears amid ongoing national discussion about the proper balance between legislative authority and executive power, a debate that has intensified as administrations of both parties have turned to emergencies, executive orders and agency actions to address policy challenges when bipartisan legislation has not materialized.