CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Flat-Out Warns Trump Already Has US ‘Dangerously Close’ To Constitutional Crisis In Just Three Weeks

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins gave a stark warning that President Donald Trump is just “3 weeks into” his second term — and already “the U.S. is dangerously close to a constitutional crisis.”

The showdown between Trump and the federal judiciary over his spending freeze is coming to a head as Trump and his top leaders signal a willingness to defy the court and ignore rulings they don’t like.

On Monday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins opened her show with a sober observation:

COLLINS: We are three weeks into the second Trump presidency. Three weeks. And tonight, there are warnings that the U.S. is dangerously close to a constitutional crisis.

Now, the first shoe on this dropped when a federal judge today said the White House is defying his order to unfreeze billions of dollars in federal aid, marking the first time that we’ve had a judge expressly accuse the Trump administration of ignoring a court ruling.

And in a separate case today, federal employees, here in Washington, told a judge that the administration was defying another order by not reinstating workers who had been put on leave.

Now, this all has prominent Democrats, and many of the nation’s top constitutional scholars, declaring that the U.S. is on the brink of a reckoning.

The Trump Justice Department says the President should have the authority to decide how to run the government, and that these judges are over-reaching.

And some of the President’s allies say, the judges should not be judging any of the moves to shrink the federal government. That includes special government employee, Elon Musk, who this weekend accused a judge, who was blocking his DOGE team from accessing Treasury Department systems, of being corrupt. With Musk, calling for the judge to be impeached.

Vice President Vance is not going quite that far, but made clear where he sees the Judiciary’s limits, writing, “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

The question, tonight, of course, is, who determines what is legitimate power?

The President himself had this to say, tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, you’ve got some very bad rulings. And uh, it’s a shame to see it, frankly. They want to sort of tell everybody how to run the country when they say that certain people in charge of massive agencies or people doing very, very — important people, smart people — doing investigations of fraud, and they don’t talk about what you’re looking at. All they just say is, oh, it’s unconstitutional.

Judges should be ruling. They shouldn’t be dictating what you’re supposed to be doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Now, as far as the judiciary is concerned, when judges issue rulings, they are dictating what you’re supposed to be doing, and not supposed to be doing, if they determine that you are breaking the law. Of course, that’s how the legal system works, and the recourse is to appeal those rulings.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.