About this episode
The episode discusses the concept of the strongman presidency and the historical attempts of presidents to control the administrative state with insights from political scientists William Howell and Terry Moe.
On today’s episode, we’re continuing a conversation about presidential power that we broached a couple of weeks ago on Statecraft in an essay called, “ What Trump Can Learn From Nixon .” It was about the attempts, in Richard Nixon ‘s one and a half presidential terms, to build what observers called the “administrative presidency” — the presidency that actually fully controlled the administrative state. My guests today have thought very deeply about presidential attempts to control the administrative state. William Howell and Terry Moe are co-authors of a book called, Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency . They’re both political scientists. Terry is a professor of political science at Stanford , and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution . Will is the Dean of the School of Government and Policy at Johns Hopkins University . We discuss: * Why most federal employees in the 1800s were mailmen, and what changed * How presidents have tried to control the administrative state * Whether Republicans have used presidential power to rein in agencies they object to * Whether the Supreme Court has been a firewall against Trump For the full transcript of this…
People in this episode
Host: Santi Ruiz
Guests: William Howell, Terry Moe
Topics covered
- presidential power
- administrative state
- political science
- control of agencies
- Supreme Court
- historical context
Keywords
- strongman presidency
- administrative control
- Nixon
- Trump
- political power
- federal employees
- Supreme Court
- political science
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Stanford, Hoover Institution, Johns Hopkins University
Books & works: Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency, What Trump Can Learn From Nixon
More episodes of Statecraft
- How the National Security Strategy Gets Made · March 12, 2026 · 58 min
- Ten Thoughts on Government Data · March 5, 2026 · 13 min
- When FAFSA Broke, They Called This Guy · February 26, 2026 · 1h 15m
- How a Congressional Office Actually Works · February 19, 2026 · 1h 9m
- How to Rewire City Hall · February 13, 2026 · 1h 2m
- What’s Wrong with Nonprofits? · February 4, 2026 · 1h 26m
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Statecraft podcast page.