As the United States prepares for President Trump to take office, the Ford School's Jonathan Hanson has been quoted by a number of news outlets searching for insight on recent and upcoming government activity. Hanson spoke with ABC, MPR, and KCBS on a variety of topics including the potential influences of Trump's business allies, recent difficulties meeting quorum in state legislatures, and the rollout of Biden's final executive orders.
“Oligarchy 2.0': Experts weigh in on whether Biden's warning about wealthy justified” ABC News, January 18, 2025 - Hanson told ABC News that Trump's alliances are "close control to government matters to someone who wasn't elected." Discussing Trump's ties to wealthy businessmen such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, he warned that "There are a lot of people who voted for Trump feeling the economy was better under his first term, and they will feel alienated by his allegiances." Hanson concluded that "If he continues his policies from the first administration that don't tackle inflation and benefit the CEO class, people will notice."
“Minnesota courts may get final say in government's constitutional clash” MPR, January 16, 2025 - On the refusal of state legislators in Minnesota to show up for voting, Hanson told MPR this has been a common political tactic throughout history. "There’s a number of times in our history where members of the state Legislature have decided to leave the proceedings in their state capitols in order to deny a quorum."
“Biden administration rushes to advance policy initiatives in final week” KCBS, January 15, 2025 - With his final days as President, Joe Biden has created a series of executive orders that incoming President Donald Trump has publicly expressed disapproval of. Jonathan Hanson told KCBS "This is not at all unusual. President’s of both parties over the past several decades have tried to use their last days in office to accomplish policy goals that they had in mind. It’s typical for an upcoming administration to look over those policies and try to undo them. Their success in doing that really depends on what kind of legal authority the previous president had to issue that order in the first place." Hanson clarified that undoing previous executive action is "not that easy as Trump found out the first time he was president. Presidents are relatively limited in their capabilities because congress never gave them that power." He stated "I think Trump is making a lot of noise about this and he says he wants to do a lot of things on day one, there are certain things he can undo. Honestly I just see this as the typical kinds of arguments that we see as administrations change power from one party to another party.”
