As President Trump tests the traditional limits of presidential power, Pelley spoke with Georgetown University legal scholar and constitutional expert Stephen Vladeck about what's legal, what's unprecedented, and what could come next.

Scott Pelley: How would you describe this moment in American history?

Stephen Vladeck: I think we're at a crossroads. We're at a political crossroads because there's just such a wide gap between the two parties. And I think we're at a constitutional crossroads because we just have not seen this kind of sustained effort by a president to arrogate to himself not just executive power, but legislative power, and increasingly to suggest that even the courts don't have much of a role in checking him. So, you know, I don't think we've seen anything quite like this, certainly in our lifetimes, probably not since Reconstruction in the Civil War. 

Scott Pelley: Can a president dismantle or defund an agency that was created by Congress?

Stephen Vladeck: The short answer is no. The longer answer is there are about 16 different statutory questions baked into that process. But no. Congress is also part of the story. Congress creates agencies like USAID. Congress creates cabinet departments of the Department of Education. The president may get to choose who runs those departments. The president may get to set policy priorities for those departments. But structuring them, funding them, that has always been Congress's prerogative. And if Congress says, "Hey Mr. President, you must spend X on foreign aid, on USAID, on education," it's never been the view, it's never even been a plausible argument, that the president can say no. 

Scott Pelley: President Trump was asked by a reporter if he needed an act of Congress to do away with USAID. And he said, quote, "I don't think so, not when it comes to fraud. If there's fraud, these people are lunatics," the president said. "If it comes to fraud, you wouldn't have an act of Congress, and I'm not sure that you would anyway."

Stephen Vladeck: We have mechanisms in place to root out fraud. Just about every federal agency has an inspector general whose principle job is to look for fraud, waste, and abuse. What did President Trump do his first week in office? He fired a whole slew of inspectors general, including ones he appointed. 

Scott Pelley: Help me understand the 101 here, Stephen. Why can't the president just fire the thousands of people in USAID, for example?

Stephen Vladeck: So, you know, USAID is an agency created by Congress. It has a bunch of positions, all of which were created by Congress. And so, when Congress creates positions in a government agency, especially, Scott, if they're civil service positions, there comes a point after a probationary period where most of these government employees are protected from being fired for any reason whatsoever. 

This was a really important reform in late 19th century America after the assassination of President Garfield. And the idea behind these reforms was if you had a civil service, then the executive branch would not just be run by patronage. Then you would have folks who were in the government not because they liked the current president and wanted to do his bidding, but because they were committed to whatever their government job was, whether it was, you know, helping to run the railroads, whether it was environmental safety. I mean, you name it.

Across the spectrum of the government, the historical understanding has been Congress is allowed to create nonpartisan, non-senior positions because that's how we ensure that the government has credibility. 

Scott Pelley: What are you, as a constitutional scholar, looking for next?

Stephen Vladeck: So, I think the two big things that I'm worried about and looking out for are what happens when these cases get to the Supreme Court and, Scott, when, not if, President Trump loses some of these cases, because he's going to lose some of these cases. Do we just see the executive branch comply? Do we see the executive branch perhaps go back to the drawing board and try to accomplish some of the same policy goals through different legal avenues? This is what we saw from President Biden with student loans. It's what we saw during the first Trump administration with the travel ban. Or do we see the kind of defiance that's getting more and more voice on the right? That's the first thing I'm looking for.

And, Scott, the second thing is Congress. I mean, you know, we've seen the Senate effectively roll over and confirm all of President Trump's nominees, even those who I think would've in any other Congress had no chance of being confirmed. Is that pattern going to continue? Is, you know, Congress going to continue acquiescing in, Scott, not just what we might think of as bad policies, but in arrogations of its power? Or is Congress going to actually try to use its power, its power over the purse, its power to raise the debt limit as a cudgel, as a lever, to try to actually nudge President Trump back into line? Those to me are the two pressure points. What happens in the Supreme Court, and whether anything moves Congress out of its current indolence.

Scott Pelley: If the president did not comply with a Supreme Court decision, where would that leave us?

Stephen Vladeck: It would leave us in completely uncharted territory. You know, a lot of folks like to repeat the Andrew Jackson quote about John Marshall making the law, let's see him try to enforce it. It's actually apocryphal. Andrew Jackson didn't actually defy the ruling in Worcester versus Georgia. 

You know, the only example we have is President Lincoln refusing to comply with the writ of habeas corpus that Chief Justice Taney issued by himself at the beginning of the Civil War. And the Abraham Lincoln story was an order from a single justice, not the full court. We've never had a president look the Supreme Court in the face and say, "I am not following this decision."

Scott Pelley: Uncharted territory?

Stephen Vladeck: Uncharted territory. You know, I don't love the term "constitutional crisis" because I'm not sure what it is. But that would certainly be one. 

And, you know, I think the question at that point would be whether our political system, even in a world in which the separation of parties has come to dominate over the separation of powers, would abide the complete accumulation of power, executive, legislative, and judicial, in one person because if so, I'm not sure how much we could call ourselves a democracy at that point.

The video above was produced by Brit McCandless Farmer and edited by Scott Rosann.