The exchange was extraordinary. One year after his return to the White House, Donald Trump sat down with four New York Times journalists in the Oval Office on January 7. They asked the billionaire whether he saw any limits to his power on the world stage. "Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me, and that's very good. I don't need international law. I'm not looking to hurt people." No checks and balances, no norms, no conventions, no multilateral commitments. One man, the most powerful in the world, alone with his conscience.
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown!" wrote William Shakespeare in Henry IV. "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law," the American president preferred to write on X in February 2025, citing a quote attributed to Napoleon. As early as 2019, during his first term, he had said that under Article II of the Constitution, he had "the right to do whatever I want." That is not what the article on executive power says, nor was it what the Founding Fathers of American democracy intended as they sought a balanced system fundamentally different from the British monarchy.
This sense of impunity has followed Trump for a long time, and it is not limited to politics. At the beginning of 2016, just before the Republican primaries, the candidate publicly marveled at the fervor of his supporters. "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue [in New York] and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay?" A few months later, in October, in the final stretch before the presidential election, the American press revealed a private recording of Trump in which he spoke about women in very crude terms. "I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything."
Trump built himself through transgression without consequence and the violation of norms. And at his age – he will turn 80 in June – there is no longer any question of making long-term plans, accepting restraints or compromising. No more need for administrative approval to demolish the East Wing of the White House and build a glittering ballroom. No more need to inform Congress when going to war.