Before Project 2025: How the Right Built Trump’s Power Grab (with David Sirota)
From The Oath and The Office by Two Squared Media Productions
April 2, 2026 · 1h 5m
About this episode
The episode discusses Trump's attack on birthright citizenship and the broader implications of a decades-long effort to expand executive power in the U.S.
Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship is only part of the story. The bigger danger is a decades-long effort to free the presidency from constitutional limits. Corey Brettschneider and John Fugelsang begin by breaking down Trump’s latest argument against birthright citizenship, why it misreads the Constitution, and what is really at stake in the legal fight. Then David Sirota joins to trace the deeper roots of Trump’s power grab: the conservative blueprints that helped lay the groundwork for Project 2025, the lessons of Nixon and Reagan, and the long campaign to expand executive power. In this episode: Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship why the constitutional case against it fails the antecedents of Project 2025 Nixon, Reagan, and the growth of presidential power why the No Kings protests matter what reforms could restore real limits on the presidency This episode is about more than one policy fight. It’s about how the presidency was reshaped, and whether American democracy can still impose meaningful limits on executive power.
People in this episode
Hosts: Corey Brettschneider, John Fugelsang
Guest: David Sirota
Topics covered
- Trump's power grab
- birthright citizenship
- constitutional limits
- executive power
- Project 2025
- Nixon and Reagan
- American democracy
Keywords
- Trump
- birthright citizenship
- constitutional limits
- executive power
- Project 2025
- Nixon
- Reagan
- American democracy
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Project 2025
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