Donald Trump has embarked on one figurative war after another in the past year — with “the radical left,” blue state cities, Ivy League universities and even onetime ally Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now he has launched an actual military war, attacking Venezuela, abducting its president and announcing that he will run the country.
This invasion was the latest reminder that Trump never runs out of ways to shock. The same guy who promised to keep us out of debilitating foreign conflicts has volunteered for the job of nation-building in a place about which the great majority of Americans know little and, until recently, cared less.
It may be folly to look for consistency in someone as impulsive and volatile as Trump. But what sets his second presidency apart is a recurrent theme: his refusal to let any laws, domestic or international, stand in his way. He has already distinguished himself as the most lawless president in American history.
He set the tone on Inauguration Day, issuing pardons for more than 1,500 people who had been convicted or charged with crimes committed during the Jan. 6, 2021, mob attack on the Capitol. Several participants who were serving prison sentences had them commuted by Trump. He has also issued assorted pardons to business tycoons and political supporters.
The message is unmistakable: If you break the law or commit a crime that suits his purposes, even a violent crime, you will walk free. No federal judge or jury will be allowed to punish those who enjoy the president’s favor.
Every day, Trump exhibits his contempt for laws enacted by Congress — and for the Constitution itself. In an interview about the disregard for due process in his mass deportations, he was asked, “Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?” Trump replied, “I don’t know.”
Whether he knows, however, doesn’t matter. What matters is that he doesn’t care. He will do as he pleases and dare anyone to stop him.
Numerous federal judges have ruled against Trump, but they are in the position of trying to put out a house fire with bottles of San Pellegrino. Judges have accused the administration of violating their orders in more than 160 cases, The Washington Post reported — and that was in July.
One infamous example is Kilmar Obrego García, who was living here without authorization and was shipped to a prison in El Salvador. Judge Paula Xinis ruled his expulsion illegal and ordered his return. Trump refused, and it took two months for the administration to bring him back, after repeatedly stonewalling the judge.
The disdain for law has been especially conspicuous in the deportation campaign, as Chicagoans know. During Operation Midway Blitz, Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino and his agents employed brutal tactics and, a federal judge found, lied about them.
Not all of Trump’s violations require violence or deceit. His handpicked Kennedy Center trustees added his name to the facility, ignoring the 1964 law naming it as a living memorial for the late president. The administration has not enforced a 2024 law requiring the Chinese company ByteDance to sell the social media platform TikTok or face a U.S. ban.
Trump has refused to spend money appropriated by Congress, which holds the constitutional power of the purse. He closed down the U.S. Agency for International Development, even though, as ProPublica noted, “no president in history has unilaterally shuttered an agency formally enshrined in law.”
The Supreme Court encouraged Trump’s approach by granting him broad immunity for crimes committed in the exercise of his official duties. That decision allows him to openly violate state and federal laws with no fear of ever being brought to justice. His lavish use of the pardon power gives his aides and allies every reason to think they can do likewise at no risk.
Until this past weekend, Trump’s lethal strikes on oceangoing Venezuelan boats for allegedly transporting drugs looked like the extreme of what he would do. These attacks snuffed out at least 115 lives last year. Those were not national defense. They were mass murder. Asked if the attacks constituted a war crime, Vice President JD Vance replied, “I don’t give a s— what you call it.”
But they were just the prelude to the Venezuela invasion on Saturday, which flagrantly abrogated international treaties the United States has signed. Never mind that the Constitution stipulates that “all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.” (My emphasis.) In 2026, the only supreme law of the land is whatever Trump decides.
He and his subordinates are engaged in a relentless effort to demolish the rule of law, which has been the foundation of the republic for 250 years. And so far, there is nothing stopping them.
Steve Chapman was a member of the Tribune Editorial Board from 1981 to 2021. His columns, exclusive to the Tribune, now appear the first week of every month. He can be reached at stephenjchapman@icloud.com.
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