the President's Day holiday marks nearly one month into president Donald Trump's second term during which expanding executive power has emerged as a top priority of his for that and the other political headlines we turn now to our politics Monday Duo that's Amy Walter of the cook political Report with Amy Walter and Tamar Keith of NPR it's great to see you both it's so Amy president Trump's tweet over the weekend he who saves his country does not violate any law this wasn't some one-off statement by President trump it was emphasized by the White House's Twitter account X account making clear that this is now the official position of the administration words that run counter to the way our system works words that run counter to what our Founders intended what questions does this raise for you um well it definitely raises questions on what guard rails are going to be standing when the president actually does something that is not okay that is actually illegal and now we know much of the push back is coming in the form of lawsuits we have a ways to go before those make them uh themselves clear obviously one going to the Supreme Court um more quickly but I think at the end of the day that looks like the the most significant guard rail the question about whether members of his own party are going to step up clearly that hasn't happened yet and I think the story that you ran before this with the farmers it really the the pipeline from individuals to their members of Congress is more important right now than ever ever that it has to come from Members not that that they're getting pressure just from the White House but that they're getting pressure from people at home who say these things are actually impacting us this is having a um an impact on our communities those calls coming in that pressure is the only other besides the Court's guard rail that I can think of right now and Tam weigh in because you covered this white house obviously and it's worth exploring and reiterating how we got here and why Donald Trump enjoys such latitude among elected Republicans right so um he he really Rose From the Ashes he is a phoenix Who Rose From the Ashes and he survived two impeachments he survived an assassination and he survived numerous criminal prosecutions that didn't ultimately uh go anywhere except in one case and that one is the sentencing was essentially put on hold so um he comes in uh also with the Supreme Court a Supreme Court with a conservative super majority that he is credited with putting there um that has a more expansive view of presidential power than past courts um and president Trump and his administration in Trump 2.0 has a significantly more expansive view of executive power than they did the first time around if the theme of the first Trump Administration was that that Trump was pushing up against Norms this time he's pushing up against laws and the the Constitution uh you know like changing the 14th Amendment or uh saying you could just use an executive order to do away with Birthright citizenship that is a dramatic escalation of some of the things that Trump did the first time around he's clearly he clearly feels emboldened absolutely and um you know to to Tam's point it's not just that they've seen Republicans have seen this President survive things that none of them in their political lifetimes they could have imagined being able to survive but he outperformed so many of them in this last election that they H are thinking to themselves well if he he's actually more popular in my district than I am he makes me question whether my political instincts are incorrect let's go with with where um he is and the only as I said the only way that he believes that he does not have a mandate would be that either support for him him among his own party starts to Crater support among the public gets much lower right now we're not at that point not even close to it meantime the Trump White House has indefinitely banned the Associated Press from the Oval Office in the Air Force One for refusing to accept president Trump's renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America the AP makes the point that other countries don't recognize this change the Associated Press has customers around the world so it still uses the term Gulf of Mexico Tam want tow on your experience as the former president of the White House correspondence Association because the Associated Press is so foundational to White House coverage unwrapped that for us and give us a sense of the implications here yeah the Associated Press is at the core of the pool that is the group of reporters who have been following the president around wherever the president goes going back to FDR um and the White House by going after AP for an editorial choice is going directly at the the First Amendment it is going directly at the freedom of the press and it is not um it is not coincidental that they are going after AP AP is extremely influential they're also um they're also kind of straight down the line um they are not a partisan news Outlet in any way um they do have the AP style guide which is used as a basis for news organizations all over the country and all over the world you know to determine which words to capitalize um and whether to call it the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America in the case of AP they're saying Gulf of Mexico but president Trump changed it to the Gulf of America for Americans Amy yeah and I I think this is such an important point that you know Tam basically outlining what it is the AP does I don't think most people even very well-informed people understand this role what they may be hearing is somebody from some news organization can't get into the White House briefing room so what there are 500 of them in there why does that matter uh he you know you can get in fights with individual news or Outlets all the time this is meant to send send definitely a message and we've already seen a number of news organizations who uh Trump has gone after legally um decide to settle or to give uh over um the in the case of CBS the uh footage so goes back to your point he's getting everything that he wants why would he do something different and there are viewers who will ask the question why doesn't the Press ban together why don't they boycott press availabilities and really stick it to this white house and show them that the freedom of the press matters and and maybe that could still happen but right now if the if the Press Corps were to do that the White House would say thank you very much we have people from uh Mike lindell's Network and from oan and from other uh sort of web social media social media influencers we've got 10,000 people who want in fill the oval and then the questions being asked will not be the the the tough questions that the American people deserve and this is a fight that this white house would want toate the press as opponents rather than the neutral observers that we are and that we're supposed to be they want this fight and they want the chilling effect that it could have on the Press Court broadly Tam Keith and Amy Walter thanks as always you're welcome thanks