The start of President Trump's second term brought dramatic proposals and unprecedented changes to the federal government.

That includes pushing the legal boundaries of executive authority.

Our new series on democracy is taking a step back to look at the big questions about changing laws, institutions, and norms.

Stephen Vladik is a law professor at Georgetown University who focuses on federal

courts and constitutional law. It's great to have you here. Great to be back with you, Jeff.

So as Donald Trump pushes the limits of executive power, he told reporters yesterday that no judge,

quote, should be allowed to rule against the changes his administration is making. Add to that a tweet

from Vice President

J.D. Vance, who appeared to question the judicial branch's authority after a federal judge temporarily

stopped Elon Musk and his aides from accessing government systems, Vance said judges aren't allowed

to control the executive's legitimate power. So that seems to at least raise the idea that the current administration

is ignoring or defying, you know, ready to ignore or defy a federal court order. How do you see it?

So I don't think we're there yet. I mean, I think it's really important to note that even as we've had

47 some odd lawsuits challenging policies from the new administration, there's really no sign yet that the

administration is affirmatively choosing to not comply with these court orders.

You know, we just saw earlier today a judge from Rhode Island who said, here are a couple

places where you're not complying fast enough.

It's not really the same thing.

I mean, I think the rhetoric here is far out in front of what's actually happening on the ground,

which is an administration at least so far, is largely abiding by these court orders,

even as we see this dangerous rhetoric about maybe why they might not have to.

So how much discretion does the executive branch have?

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