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Trump Melts Down as Congress Pushes Back · The Oath and The Office

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Welcome once again to the Oath and the Office. I
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: am John Fugel, saying it is a pleasure to have you,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and I am happier than a garden full of knicks
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: fans booing the President to welcome the man who is
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the star of the show, the author of the Oath
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and the Office. People of Earth, please welcome Brown University
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Political Science Professor Corey Bretschneider.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Hello, Sir, Hi John, what a pleasure to speak with you.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: And on a week two in which there are going
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: to be things again to continue to celebrate because there
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: is pushback against this president, there's assertion of congressional power,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: and although we've had a lot of weeks where things
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: were looking bleak, this is another one where I'm feeling
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: at least more optimistic than I was.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Well.
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  Speaker 1: I'll never forget the first time we ever met, Professor
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: over ten years ago at SiriusXM, because that was the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: day you said to me, you're either crooked or you're stupid.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Let's call it quits. And wow, the coincidence that Donald
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Trump said those exact words in the latest man Baby meltdown.
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: I just have to apologize for that. John. It was
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: you know a rough moment. That's okay.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Now, listen, you were going through audience, We're very hard,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: and listen.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: You were going through a lot at the time. You
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: had multiple indictments at the time, and you got booed
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: by a stadium full of Knicks fans. So I understand you,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: weren't you.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: And I think you were also just refusing to admit
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: that I had a lot of evidence of the election fraud.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: That that that is correct. I would I would not
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: acknowledge your evidence because you hadn't produced any. And it's
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: so funny how how history repeats itself.
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: So same thing you got to.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Talk about Meet the press obviously, because I think the
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: most fascinating thing about the meet the press tantrum we've
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: heard so much about it's it's not that it you know,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, it ended the way you'd expect. He didn't
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: end the interview. He rage quit Democracy. Kristen Welker asked
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Trump for evidence that California's election was rich, and he
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: said it's cheating because the ballots are getting counted after
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: election day and I'm watching this like, yeah, that's how
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: counting works. The score changes while you're counting the score.
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  Speaker 1: You know, like like it was like walking out of
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: a restaurant because the waiters still adding up the bill,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: like I like this bill until you counted the appetizers.
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  Speaker 1: Now it's cricket and Professor, everyone's talking about the tantrum.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: The real story is what the President was tantraping about.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: He wasn't running from Kristin Welker. He was running from
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the question about election legitimacy. And I need to go
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: deep on this with you. Before we even get to that,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: you knew the interview is going poorly over Kristen Welker's
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: questions for the President about what shall we call it?
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: The slush fund, the bribery fund, the reparations for terrorists,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the anti weaponization fund. Republicans and Democrats were furious over this,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: and they blocked the immigration bill Trump liked. In protest,
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  Speaker 1: Todd Blanche came forward and defended the fund before the committee, saying, Okay, well,
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  Speaker 1: we're not going to do it, but we're still going
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: to do part of it. Corey, we've talked about this before.
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  Speaker 1: Constitutionally speaking, what alarms you the most about a government
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: compensation fund aimed at people who the president personally believes
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: were treated badly by prosecutors for their crimes.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think you know, the substance of the matter
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: is that Trump is trying to rewrite history and to
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: reward those who engaged in insurrection. Without question, that's the
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: fundamental problem here, that it really is an attempt to
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: create a slush fund that will be used to just
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: support his not just his supporters, but those who are
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: willing to commit insurrection in order to destroy our democracy.
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  Speaker 4: And it's one thing to lie about what happened.
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  Speaker 2: It's another thing to give the pardons, but now to
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: pay the people is a whole other level. But there
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: is a you know, more wonky explanation of what's wrong here,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: which is that he doesn't have the authority to do so.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: That there is no congressional authorization to create a slush
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  Speaker 2: fund to fund insurrection, certainly, and so you know, the
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: complicity of Congress up until now of not saying anything
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: has been part of the problem. And so starting to
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  Speaker 2: see the pushback on behalf of even members of his
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  Speaker 2: own party, partly because they're.
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  Speaker 4: Worried about their own survival.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: They see that this president is abandoning them in the
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: midterms out of care only for his own revenge and
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: his own personal desires. But it is a recognition that
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  Speaker 2: not only that this is wrong, but that not only
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  Speaker 2: that it's a threat to democracy, but that he doesn't
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  Speaker 2: have the legal authority to do it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and again Todd blanche announced before the House Appropriation
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  Speaker 1: Subcommittee that the DOJ would not be moving forward with
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  Speaker 1: the Weaponization Fund. Oh but they still want to have
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the irs rigged, so Trump and his ghastly children can
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: never be investigated for any crimes in perpetuity. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: it's madness. Now they're saying that the fund is being
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  Speaker 1: abandoned while they're still defending the concept behind it. Corey,
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  Speaker 1: what does this say about how executive power is being
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  Speaker 1: understood inside this administration?
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think that for Trump, and this
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: has just been true from the beginning, what executive power
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: is is a kind of kingly power. So of course
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: he has the power, as he often says, to do
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  Speaker 2: anything that he wants, and that includes the ability to
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  Speaker 2: fund your secret slush fund, your fund, your insurrectionists.
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  Speaker 4: And you know, there couldn't.
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  Speaker 2: Be anything further from the truth of how government is
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: supposed to operate under law. And you know that's why
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  Speaker 2: I think the attorney general is the president's personal lawyer
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  Speaker 2: and sees his job as doing whatever Trump wants. But finally,
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: the pushback from Congress, I think, the pushback from the courts,
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  Speaker 2: the recognition, as we talked about last week, that the
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  Speaker 2: initial deal that led to the creation of this fund
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  Speaker 2: with the IRS, that all of this is illegal, has
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  Speaker 2: led to the Attorney General to start to back off
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  Speaker 2: and to publicly say, I don't think so now, you know,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: as we're going.
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  Speaker 1: To get acting attorney general, guess that's important.
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  Speaker 4: Let's not promote him.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, I think though, when you listen to Trump,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: you see in this interview how much he cares about
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: this fund and how emotionally connected he was to it.
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  Speaker 2: And so you know, that idea that he's being told no,
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  Speaker 2: the petulant child that he is can't stand it because
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: he wants to be able to not just pardon, not
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  Speaker 2: just praise and reward his supporters, but pay them and
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  Speaker 2: again pay them for insurrection. So this is, you know,
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  Speaker 2: attention between somebody who you know, although he's an extreme
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  Speaker 2: version of a loyalist, the acting attorney general, he knows
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  Speaker 2: that there's no lawful basis for it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And again, they finally believe in reparation scory. Not
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: for the descendants of slavery, not for the descendants of
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the indigenous inhabitants of this land, but for terrorists who
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  Speaker 1: beat up cops for a lie. They get reparations and
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: we pay for it. Now, he started to get angry
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: when she was questioning him about this proposal, and we're
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: going to play some clips of him getting really angry.
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  Speaker 1: But historically do presidents tend to react strongly when challenged
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: about efforts that blur the line between public authority and
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: person grievance. I mean, I mean, the mere existence of
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: this proposal just normalizes the idea that the government exists
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  Speaker 1: to reward your friends and punish your enemies.
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  Speaker 2: You know, there have been slush funds before, and as
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: listeners know, I'm very consumed with Richard Nixon, who I
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: wrote a lot about in my book The Presidents and
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: the People, And certainly he did have a slush fund.
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  Speaker 2: He was paying clandestine operators to do his bidding illegally,
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  Speaker 2: including the most famously, of course, the break in at
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: the Brookings Institution. Less famously, but equally important, the role
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: of Howard Hunt and breaking into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office in
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: order to get dirt. All that was funded by secret funds.
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  Speaker 2: Now here's the difference. This is a slush fund of
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: that kind on a much larger basis being used to
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  Speaker 2: fund insurrection. Yeah, and being done in public because there's
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  Speaker 2: no embarrassment about what's happening.
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  Speaker 4: That's what makes this so frightening.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. And now we move to the meltdown
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  Speaker 1: of this because, as you know, Professor, every time Donald
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Trump sees votes being counted after election day, he reacts
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  Speaker 1: like Dracula sing a sunrise. You know, California has counted
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: ballots this way for years. Republicans know it, and election
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  Speaker 1: officials know it, and political scientists know it, and Donald
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Trump knows it. But he needs his base to think
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: that counting votes is suspicious. Give a listen to this
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  Speaker 1: clip with Kristen Welker and listen to how it goes.
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  Speaker 1: How they've shifted their narrative now from voter fraud to
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: vote counting fraud. Here's the first clip.
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  Speaker 2: To me, let's talk.
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  Speaker 3: This tremendous evidence is nothing, but the election was rigged.
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  Speaker 3: It was a dirty election. This is happening again right
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  Speaker 3: now in happening now in California. Right now, it's looking.
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  Speaker 3: Look at what's happening. It's in California. It's now, they're
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  Speaker 3: not there. They're dropping fast because it's a rigged election.
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  Speaker 3: Let me tell you, it's four days and they aren't
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  Speaker 3: even close.
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  Speaker 1: To That's how they can why.
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  Speaker 3: They're doing that, because they're cheating on the election.
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  Speaker 4: There's what do you have evidence to support?
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  Speaker 3: You have to do his look or and I listen
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  Speaker 3: to people.
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  Speaker 1: I have to do is look, Corry. That's the perfect
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  Speaker 1: summary to his entire approach. It is no proof, no fact,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: no investigations. It's a guy arguing with like a ceiling fan. Right,
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  Speaker 1: and that's the tantrum. Again, he threw a fit on television.
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  Speaker 1: That's not the shocking thing. We've seen the meat goblin
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  Speaker 1: melt down. But this is exactly what he did before
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty. He's teaching his supporters that any result he
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  Speaker 1: doesn't like is illegitimate. Right, that's what this is.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I love that that line. All you need to
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  Speaker 4: do is look.
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  Speaker 2: It reminds me of when he asks for the specific
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: number of votes that he needed in Georgia to claim victory.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's of course the evidence, the truth doesn't matter.
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  Speaker 2: It's all motivated by his goal. And it's somebody who's
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  Speaker 2: just so immune to the truth. You know, the technical
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  Speaker 2: term is bullshit for not caring at all about what
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: the truth is.
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  Speaker 4: He just wanted to get the result.
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  Speaker 2: And here he is just bullshitting so vigorously in the
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: face of a lack of evidence. And she says, where's
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: your evidence? So I don't need evidence. You just have
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: to manufacture the evidence. That's what he's saying. But you know,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: unaware but real confession of what this presidency is about.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: And of course as he's losing it, things just go downhill.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and again this is not about California at all.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: He doesn't care about California. He knows how this is
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: going to go. They knew that Republicans were going to
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: be leading in some California races on election night. But
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: then the mail ballots get counted, then the Democrats gained votes.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: It's not because votes are appearing, the votes are being counted.
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  Speaker 1: And this is a distinction that this man professor has
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: spent six years pretending he doesn't understand. Because he is
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: preparing his supporters to view the counting itself as evidence
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  Speaker 1: of cheating. This is no longer about illegal immigrants votevoting
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: because they want to go to a polling place and
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: get caught. Now the con is not voter fraud, it's
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: vote counting fraud. That election should stop the moment Republicans
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: are ahead, you know, like we've got to declare the
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Super Bowl over after the first quarter. So here is
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the meltdown. And at the end of this he gets
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: up rather unsteadily. It's disturbing watching him get out of
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: a chair, Professor, and he throws his mic on the
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: ground and steps on it and walks off the set.
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  Speaker 3: That they have an election, and five days later they're
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: nowhere close to picking.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: Local officials acknowledge they are slow.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: They're urging, or they're crooked.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: They're urging the votes to.
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: Be counted quickly.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: That's how they bar crooked.
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: Just like your crooked.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: Your pressure's crooked, and meet the pressure's crooked. To be fair,
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: I'm not crooked, but's when you play right into their
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: hands zone you're either crooked or you're stupid. You play
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: right into their hands with this rep You know that
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they're rigged.
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: You know that I won an.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: Election in a landslide and I got presented because you
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: have no credibility, But you've.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: Never presented evidence there was ringed.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Let's keep talking about I want to talk about Tom.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: You have more evidence. There's more evidence than ever presented.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: Let's talk to your elections were like a third world country.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Your elections are crooked, and you're crooked. You're suppresses crooked,
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: and show is ABC and CBS and CNN, the one
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: sided crooked network. So let's call it quits because I've
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: had anough Thank you, darling, have a good time for
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: president on the ground all the way to Wisconsin.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: I've shot all I know.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: On and off in the rain, and I've given you.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Enough time, and you understand there's nothing he hates more
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: than going out in public in the rain, Corey, because
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: that melts the hair. Did law school prepare you to
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: talk about stuff like this?
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: Professor?
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Did years of teaching in the Ivy League give you
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: the schools to talk about male behavior like this.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: You know a lot of law school tea, and I
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: teach undergrad's law as well, and use the same techniques
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: as you come up with the most wild hypotheticals you try,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: they're almost like films if you do them well. And
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: outrageous situations and the idea of a president who was
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: simultaneously trying to fund insurrectionists and then justifying that insurrection
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: with his old theme that the election was rigged, and
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: trying to institute a coup by lying about evidence and
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: claiming evidence when you know it would just seem too wild.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: It really is jumping the shark that that episode, of course,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: where Arthur Fonzarelli, I think he's in Hawaii, you know,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: jumps over a shark with water skis, and wow, this
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: is a different level of jumping the shark than we
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: could have ever imagined from Happy Days. It's it's just,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: you know, it's another level, and yet it keeps happening.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: I think, you know, to go back to our.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Theme that we've been talking about the payments and the
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: slush fund to try to really institutionalize and that's what
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: was so threatening about it.
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: I can't say that enough.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: That it was an attempt to have payment for engaging
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: in insurrection and to have a you know, a militia force.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Essentially that civilian militia force is being paid in order
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: to destroy our democracy. That I think is what got
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: him going that as she's attacking that and saying what
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: this really is and calling it out, and he's getting
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: emotional thinking about his supporters who he had to pardon
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: and who he abandoned for a period of time. That
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: then leads him into the justification for why he needed
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: the coup of January sixth, which is that he won
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: the election, and that kind of lie then starts spiraling
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: into the discussion of California and the evidence of supposed
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: fraud there.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: So you know it's all intertwined in his mind.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: And when you call it out, when you pierce the
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: veil of bullshit with truth, that just freaks him out.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: And there you had him melt down in real time
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: and we just heard him.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: It's a great point, and I want to point out
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: to our listeners that was the peak of Donald Trump's week,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: by the way, being a petulant man baby who then
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: in the end, and you got to see it because
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: the best part. I know we're an audio medium, but
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: folks to try to just watch the ending, to watch
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump try to stand up from a chair and
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: almost grab Kristen Welker to steady himself before waddling off
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: the set like the penguin abandoning the Gotham super villains
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: meeting deep under Gotham, going.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Wow wow, wow, wow wow.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's appalling, But you know, a day later,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: he's getting booed by thousands of people at MSG, and
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: it made me realize he's going to spin that too.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, he knows what a scene he threw, but
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: he's not running to make Americans believe him. He's running
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: to keep one third of the country angry. He's running
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: to keep that one third of the electorate he can
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: count on infuriated and on his side, because he's proven
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: in the past one third of the country can sometimes
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: be all you need. And I thought the same thing
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: watching him be booed at the National Anthem. I'm like,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: why would they let him do that? Why would they
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: let him into MSG for a bunch of New York
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: City NBA fans. Susie Wild should be fine? And then
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I realized they knew he was going to get booed.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: I will bet you anything, Professor, now, the narrative of
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Trump and the minions, it won't be the thousands booed him.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: You know, what they're going to do. It's all going
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to be for division. He's going to spread the narrative
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: that urban NBA fans booed our sacred national anthem. That's
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: going to be the message that they booed our anthem.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: He is grasping at dog whistles, and once again it
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: seems like, well, this is crazy, but there's method in it, right,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, there is more strategy to some of this
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: belligerent behavior than might be a parent, you.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: Know, and he'll try all the above.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: I did see him say actually was well received in
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden. He tried to pretend there was no booing,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: and there are some versions of the video where you
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: don't hear him, of course we're talking about at the
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Knicks Championship in Madison Square Garden. There are some versions
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: of the video where you can't quite hear the booing
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: as loud as it was, and so he tried to
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: spin it as that becomes untenable.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: Well, then he'll just swim.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: He'll use the narrative that he needs to try to
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: look good. I don't want to lose sight too. Just
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: going back to the interview of when he has his meltdown,
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: The way he tries to recreate calm is through his sexism.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: He calls her darling, the interviewer Ristin Walker, and you know,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: starts in his typical way to just condescend not just
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: to this interviewer, but to all women.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: And wow, it's really is his greatest hits.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: The support of the insurrection, the lying about the election,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: and then the misogyny, all to.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Attack the intelligence of a woman reporter. It's everything. It's Yeah,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: he's at the State Fair doing Freebird. This is this
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: is what they've come for.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: And I just want to say, by the way, I
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: get to commute by bike through this midtown circus to
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: get to serious XM studios. Last night, the Knicks are
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: trying to win the NBA Championship, and Trump somehow found
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: a way to make the whole evening about Donald Trump.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: But one other thing I want to ask you about, professor,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: is that the House just passed measures rebuking military involvement
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: in Iran, which no but he saw coming. Four Republicans
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: joined Democrats two fifteen to two away to vote to
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: pass this measure encouraging the end of the war in Iran,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: and separately approved Ukraine assistance despite Trump's raging opposition. Corey,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: it's war powers time. Finally, it seems like there's almost
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: a reclaiming of the power of Congress over foreign policy.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: We've discussed it so many times. The Constitution gives Congress
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: alone the power to declare war, and over decades presidents
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: of both parties have gotten all of this unilateral military
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: authority for themselves. How far has the balance shifted? What
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: would James Madison say about concentrating war making authority in
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: one guy?
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: You know, I love that question.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: I love when we can frame what's happening in terms
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: of the founders of this country, who really laid out
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: so clearly in our Constitution a division of the war
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: power that had been united in England and the British
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: King had the power both to initiate war or British
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Queen the monarch to initiate war and to carry it out.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: And the genius in part of our Constitution you can
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: see it right there in Article one, which says it's
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Congress the lawmaking body that has the power to initiate
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: or declare war, and on the other hand, Article two,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: the President of the United States the power of commander
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: in chief. Now what's happened to that in recent months
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: is just a total disregard, not even a recognition of this,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: just an ignoring of it, and the particular initiation of
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: war with Iran. And this was not a defensive war,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: which is an exception to that idea that Congress declares war.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: It was a clearly initiated war.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: And you know, there's a lot that has to happen,
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: and it's.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Related, I think to the pushback that we saw in
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: the Weaponization Fund. But the immediate politics before I get
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: to the founders, is that Republicans are seeing this guy
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: does not care about them. He is really doing whatever
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: it takes to advance himself. He cares about revenge, he
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: doesn't care certainly about the constant. And there's a ripple
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: effect as they push back on the Weaponization Fund, Suddenly
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: there are votes too to say, hey, we have a
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: constitution in this country and to recognize, to go back
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: to your point about Madison that you know it was
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: just to show you how far we've trade and the founding.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: There was a debate in Washington's cabinet about whether or
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: not Washington, George Washington, the first president, could even discuss
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: his foreign policy goals and even mention, you know, his
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: views about possible war with foreign nations or even what
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: he thought America's foreign.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: Policy should be.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: That's how focused on Congress the Framers were.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: And now we're in a moment where where the explicit.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Power to initiate war is just taken away from Congress. Well,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: now this week we get pushed back in two areas.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: One the votes.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Also there's emotions both in the Senate and also in
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: the House to reclaim the war power and to say no,
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: you can't continue, you can't initiate war without US Congress
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: to Claire's war, it's in some way symbolic, but it
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: is a recognition that it is Congress that has this power,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: and it's a kind of threat to him to not
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: continue to engage in war without authorization in Iran.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: And then one other thing that you mentioned is.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: The real power, of course, is tied to the related
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: power to allocate funds, and so saying you better, you know,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: we are funding the Ukrainians regardless of what you think.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: That's another really important, non symbolic assertion of Congressional power.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a symbolic vote, but symbols can matter
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: in constitutional governments, So I mean symbolic votes can evolve
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: into meaningful institutional resistance. And you know, I think it
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: seems like we've reached a point where so many Americans
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: just assume foreign policy belongs exclusively to the president because
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: we haven't legally declared war since the year nineteen forty one.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And this is both presidents. We grew up watching Bill
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Clinton bomb other countries when he felt like it too.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of Americans don't realize how unusual
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: it is for longres to publicly challenge a US president
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: on military matters. Professor, how how historically significant was this moment?
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: He was furious at these four Republicans, but I thought
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: they were acting like, what's that word they used? Conservatives?
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's conservatives, you know.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is supposedly concerned with the meaning of
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: being a conservative in this country since the Reagan administration
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: at least has been that you care about the Constitution's text. Well,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: what clear example of congressional power than the war power,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: which is right there in clean words, given to declare
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: war is given to Congress, And yet nobody's been talking
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: about it. And I want to come back to your
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: point that symbols matter, because they absolutely do in this case.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Think about the absence of Congress having done what it
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: just did, speaking up against the usurpation of its war power.
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: You know what that means is complicity.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: When you say nothing, it's essentially just agreeing to the
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: president's ability to initiate war. So it's the pulling back
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: on the failure to speak, the pulling back on the
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: complicity that we've had up until now in the acquiescence
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: and really the and let's call it what it is,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: the illegal war by the president. It's not, by the way, too,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: that you know somehow it's legal because Congress didn't say anything.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: What was happening was Congress has to initiate the war
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: without that, you know, especially after the thirty or sixty
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: day period that the War Powers Act passed to clarify
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: the war making powers gives a president to engage in
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: in action short of war, but after that sixty days
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: and even before that, if it's a war, not just
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: an action military action, it's illegal. And so Congress being quiet,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: isn't agreeing to it. It doesn't have that ability. It's
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: complicit in the violation of the law. And now finally
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Congress is saying, hey, there's a law here, there's a constitution,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: and that is you know, we've been calling it symbolic,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: but it's obviously more than that. It's the assertion of
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: the fundamental framework of our government.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Well, this Ukraine vote was quite a bit more substantive.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: This was very again Trump's wishes now again friends. For
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: those who don't remember, the United States once was part
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: of a treaty to get Ukraine to give up their
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: nukes and give them to Russia, because Ukraine once had
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the largest amount of nuclear stockpile of any European nation.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: And of course, when the curtain came down, we signed
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the Budapest Memorandum, where the US, the UK and Russia
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: all signed a deal saying that we will always protect
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Ukraine if they're ever invaded in exchange for them giving
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: up their nukes. Of course Russia did. And if there's
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: one thing we know about right wing Christian nationalists, that
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the Indians taught us, they love breaking their own treaties.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: So Trump is furious that we're continuing to honor our
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: agreement to fund our ally. Eighteen Republicans voted to pass this.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: It was a two twenty six one to ninety five vote.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: It gives eight billion in loans to Ukraine and NATO
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: military programs, a billion dollars to other funds for Ukraine.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Does the power of the purse still remain Congress's strongest
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: constitutional weapon?
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: You know, I think they're tied together, and I think
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: that's the reason I was very eager to talk about
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: these two stories as one story, that the reassertion of
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: the war power and the real use of the allocation
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: power of Congress, because you know, the Framer is designed
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: not just you know, individual powers, but a system as
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: a whole that was meant to work together and how
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: to make it clear that Congress really had control over war.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: It wasn't just meant to be symbolic. They have the
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: requirement of funding any war, and this is a kind
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: of implicit recognition that you know, look, if we can
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: dictate that this money has to be spent and implied
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: in that is the threat that if you ignore us
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: on the war powers, if you continue to go to
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: war without our permission, we can withdraw the funds.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: And that's by design.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: That really is the James Madison technique that's there from
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: the beginning. So I think these two stories, you know,
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: it's not a coincidence that they're happening together, and it's
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: really important that we talk about them together because what
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: we're doing is, you know.
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: These powers are rusty.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: We've been letting them lay vacant and they don't get used. Well,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: now they're being used. The power to initiate a war
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: or to refuse to initiate it, and the power to
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: fund or not fund certain you know, foreign policy, including wars,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: if Congress makes that decision. Now, you know, we're so
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: used to just deferring to a president, and in the
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: reassertion of congressional power, we're starting to get the law back.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to say one other thing, John, because
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: this is a less obvious point. But you know, when
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: you're mentioning the idea that Trump is dishonoring the prior
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: agreement to fund Ukraine.
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: For Trump, you know, he is the state, he is
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: the government, and.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: The idea that the nation would have prior agreements, I
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: actually think that's beyond his comprehension. And yet the idea
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: that we are one nation led under the law. It
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: requires the idea that no, it doesn't matter who's occupying
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: the office at the particular moment. What the bindingness of
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: agreements transfers through administrations And when you think that you're
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: the law, when you're the dictator, it's just impossible to
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: understand that. And it's another deep failing well.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: And also, these guys want to invade Cuba, Corey, we
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: know it. They're starving the people of Cuba, like the
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: media blockout on the human rights catastrophe that's happening in
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Cuba because they think it should be our colony and
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Marco Rubio should be viceroy. This is all still going on.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: So like, this is what I think when I see
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: this vote, because tell me if I'm wrong here. If
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Congress keeps on reclaiming authority over military decisions, this could
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: be one of the most significant constitutional developments of this
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: whole bloody period. I mean, what would genuine congressional oversight
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: of warpowers actually look like. I can't see this Congress
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: ever being that strong against this man.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, just to before we get into
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: the politics of it, there is no legal authority of
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: the President of the United States to go in.
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: And to seize Cuba. And in the same way.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: There wasn't a legal authority to go in and seize
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: the president of Venezuela. Now, you know, if Congress voted
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: to do so, we could talk about the justice or injustice,
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: the pragmatism or lack thereof of doing it, but at
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: least that would give it a legal authority. There is
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: none here. And yet this president, you know, has that aim.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Whether or not he's going to view these two votes
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: that we're talking about as a possible pushback on his
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: own power, I'm not sure.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure that it will.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, Rubio is so despite having been a senator
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: himself so so intent on it. They might again disregard it,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: and I would hope that the Congress would start to
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: see its obligation.
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: This isn't new.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: By the way, I talked about Nixon, and you know,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: I'll just mention some Nixon parallels.
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: I can't get it right.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Nixon, Kissinger and Nixon, of course, were involved in the
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: in the destruction of a democratic government in Chile. I
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: don't know that political sounds who study Latin America disagree
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: about the extent to which this was a US coup
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: or whether or not it was, you know, some combination.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: But we know for a fact that Nix and Kissinger
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: war involved, and by Kissinger's own acknowledgement, in destroying a
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: democratic government.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: So there's a long history of that.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: But the whole point of the War Powers Act was
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: not just in regard to Chile and the coup of Pinochet,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: but also of course in Vietnam and the illegal actions
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: beyond Vietnam and Cambodian laos.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: The Congress said no more.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: That was it happened at the end of Nixon's administration
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: over his veto and what did they do.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: They passed the War Powers Act.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: That was meant to be a reassertion of congressional power. Now,
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: for a variety of reasons, that's just been pushed to
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: the side.
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: But what we need now.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: That a president is engaged in initiating war in Iran
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: and wanting to refuse to follow Congress and supporting Ukraine,
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: refusing to honor our agreements, is a reassertion of that
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: idea that it's Congress, not the president, that declares war.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: So what I'm hopeful is in the same way that
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Nixon's abuses led to reform that what we're talking about
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: right now, well not in this Congress, but in the
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: next Congress lead to a real reassertion of the war powers.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: And even if we won't see it in the next
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: few months, I'm assuming that the Democrats will retake the House.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: At least I'm hoping that the moment has to be seized.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: And as you said too, the Democratic Party is not
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: focused on the reassertion of the congressional war power. But
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: it is long overdue that we do exactly that.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, we got to take a breaker. Wendy's going to
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: throw me in podcast jail. Professor, please sit tight. We'll
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: be back in just a second. We have a lot
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: to cover, including oh, his name was Blanche. Let's talk
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: about twisted Todd when we return. This is the Oath
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: in the Office. Welcome back to the Oath and the Office.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I'm John Fugel Sang along with Professor Corey Breschneider Corey.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Two controversial personnel decisions right now generating just a bit
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: of scrutiny. The nomination of Donald Trump's personal attorney, Todd Blanche,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: who defended him in his fraud cases in New York
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: because he's a criminal defense attorney and he lost the case.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: This is Todd Blanche, who was dispatched to go to
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Jules Maxwell's cell and when he walked out, this child
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: rapist had a cushy deal to go to a very
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: nice club fed prison that child rapists normally don't get
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: to go to. So this is where we're at. Todd
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Blanche is dirtier than Donald Trump's hamper. But there's also
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: the appointment of William Pulty as acting Director of National
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Intelligence while he's still running the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: This is creepy. Let's start with the fact that the
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Senate has to approve this. The Framers really placed enormous
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: importance on Senate confirmation, and it feels like that's pretty
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: relevant right now. Right Hamilton said appointments are one of
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: the most important checks on presidential power.
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: Was he right? Absolutely?
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: You know, I think we've been talking about the Framers
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: and their design and how although we've been wondering where
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: these supposed checks and balances are, He's starting to emerge.
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: A little bit.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: And I think one of the most powerful is the
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: requirement that principal officers, including certainly the Attorney General of
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: the United States, face Senate confirmation and what that means,
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: certainly in contemporary times, is a hearing questions and in
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: some instances, and this is what I want to get to,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: a requirement agreements that are made that will have consequences
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: later on. So one of the most important confirmation hearings
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: in the United States history was the confirmation of Elliott Richardson.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: And when Elliot Richardson was confirmed this attorney general, before
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: the Senate voted to confirm him, they asked him a
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: very specific question, will you pledge here to promise not
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: to fire the person investigating Richard Nixon, Archibald Cox, promise
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: not to fire him? And when Richardson said yes, even
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: though he was a party loyalist, he saw himself not
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: as a Todd Blanche, but it's somebody who really cared
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: about the party, cared about the future of the party,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: cared about Nixon. When he was told fire Cox, fire
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: the Nixon said, fire the person looking into my wrongdoing.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: The president, the protocol said, wasn't supposed to do it himself.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: He needed the attorney general to do it and the
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: law arguably, and Richardson said no, I can't why because
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: I promised in my confirmation hearing. And although Richardson, by
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: the way, is often seen as a kind of hero,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: and it was a moment of virtue. It really was
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: the senators who pressed him to say, you know, to
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: pledge publicly that he wouldn't do it.
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: It was just too embarrassing.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: And so that starts to show you these hearings matter
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: both in hopefully they'll just reject the nominee because no
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: way is he qualified. And in the same way that
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Harriet Myers and Bush's personal lawyer wasn't confirmed to be
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: a Supreme Court justice, this guy could be confirmed to
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: be Attorney General by a mile. But at minimum, if
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: even any principled Republican is going to claim to vote
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: for him, they shouldn't. They've got to really get these
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: pledges on the table to what number one, not engage
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: in the kind of prosecution of enemies that's been going on.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly right. I have to bring it back to
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: the DOJ position again because we always hear the Department
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: of Justice must be independent, right, I mean, god forbid,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: you know Bill Clinton talks to someone on a tarmac,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: But constitutionally speaking, what does that actually mean that the
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Justice Department must be independent? Like I think there's Republican
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: senators who will still be conservative enough, not obedient enough
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: that they'll be appalled. I remember I brought it up
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: to you last night on SiriusXM, the outrage of Republicans
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: over the Harriet Meyers nomination twenty two years ago. Now
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: there's going to be Republicans appalled by the fact that
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: this guy's trying to put his own criminal defense lawyer
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: from his own shady crimes as our nation's top cop.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: When this guy's already proven to be quite amenable to
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: above others child rapists who get preferential treatment. Do you
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: think that Congress is this Senate is still craven enough
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: this man can pass.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm hoping is going to start to play out,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: that the recognition that, first of all, remember you know,
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: as as hard as it's been for this administration to
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: recruit good people and it might be hard to recruit
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: a decent attorney general, having his personal lawyer serve as
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: attorney general is really an insult.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: To the entire system of government.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: The idea, what is an independent department of justice supposed
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: to be? First of all, I'm going to go back
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: to the origin of the Department of Justice in the
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: nineteenth century, during the Grant administration. What was it created
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: for it to enforce civil rights, to enforce the rights
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: of the most vulnerable, And what is it being used for?
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: What is the opposite of that, to prosecute political opponents.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: And that's how Trump views the Department of Justice the
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: same as a kind of Roy Cohen, his personal lawyer
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: for a long time. Who he you know, he's always saying,
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: get me my new Roy Cohen. That's what he wants,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: somebody who's just totally couldn't care less about the law,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: totally corrupt, vicious Cohan. Of course, Roy Cohen was the
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: lawyer for McCarthy going out the Red Scare alleged communists
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: in the government.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: That's arguably Donald Trump's Sith mass and Trump was his
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: evil sith Padawan.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Go on, So what is independence? It's the opposite of that.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: It's saying no, it's saying what we often did see
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: actually in the first Trump administration, that the job of
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: the Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer, not
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: to serve the personal interests of the president. And so
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: as that idea comes out and Democrats will hammer at it,
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: I just have to think that Republicans are going to
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: see no way can the guy who's the opposite of that, the.
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: President's personal lawyer, be this person?
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: And as you said last night and as I mentioned
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: before today, Harriet Myers is sort of the perfect example.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: By the way, Harriet Myers a much better would have
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: been a much better Supreme Court justice or attorney general than.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Well or then right, wasn't no, But it wasn't Harriet
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Myers the one when he had to pull back on her,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: we got Alito, Like, it's an interesting point. I remember
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: when they had to pull back on you know, Oh god,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: who's the one who smoked weed? And we got Kennedy
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: out of that one. Back in the eighties.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: It was a Ginsburg Ginsburg.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Corey. What questions should senators ask
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Todd Blanche regarding prosecutorial independence? What would you most want
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: to hear them ask this guy on camera?
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, you know, we've got to move beyond
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: the abstractions to the personal and to say, you know,
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: do you believe that it is the job of the
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: attorney general, if asked to prosecute the president's personal enemies,
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: to say no? And then I think they've got to
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: ask him about the specific cases of Letitia James and
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: James Comy and how can the government be involved in
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: what are clearly political prosecutions? And this has to be
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: a moment, you know, whenever you have the focus of
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: the American public to really embarrass the Department of Justice
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: and the Attorney General for allowing this to happen and
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: for acting as not just the president. I should say
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: personal lawyer. Doesn't quite capture it, because the personal lawyer
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: is still.
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: Bound by the law. That's the obligation of any lawyer.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: This guy is acting as a thug and the Department
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: of Justice is acting as a criminal d tired and
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: that's what they've got to bring out. So do you
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: not agree that this is the obligation of the Department
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: of Justice to stand up to a president that would
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: use you as his personal tool of revenge.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: You know, the Attorney General serves the Constitution, not the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: president personally. We keep having to teach people this scory.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: I want to move off with this, but why is
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: that distinction so critical here?
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Because when you have you know, the truth is at
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: the same time that we have this idea that we've
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: been talking about all episode of dividing the powers between
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: the Congress, the judiciary, and the president. That the modern
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: presidency is just so powerful, more than two million people,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: and when you have a president intent on crime, intent
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: on dictatorship, it turns out that these other branches can
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: be crushed. And one of the places where the vulnerability
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: is most clear is in the office of the attorney general.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: I am going to go back and do a little
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: more history the reason why the term unitary executive got
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: its name.
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot to WoT with it.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: But there is a factual basis for it, which is
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: the Framers disagreed about whether or not we should have
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: an independently elected attorney general. Letitia James, who I just mentioned,
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: is in New York and was at the founding. The
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Attorney General of New York was independently elected, and the
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: Framers rejected that. They said, you know, we can trust
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: a president. A president will be a person of virtue,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: and so we'll put the attorney general not as an
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: independently elected person, but within the president's cabinet. What a
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: mistake that turned out to be. Man, how much should
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: we have been saved if they didn't do that.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Well, So, this whole appointment of Bill Pulti as Acting
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Director of National Intelligence is a whole different issue because
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: again he's replacing Telsea Gabbard, who resigned just recently. This
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: guy is still the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: He is a rabidly obedient Trump henchman, and he will
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: hold both jobs at once. So because this guy only
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: the acting DNI, he's not going to have to go
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: before the setup for confirmation. But I think a lot
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: of Senators, including Republicans, are furious about this. How weird
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: and disturbing is it when one guy simultaneously holds multiple
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: powerful positions.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: Scoring Well, it's a symbol of how dysfunctional our government
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: has become.
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: Because what is it about.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: There are very few people who are going to pass
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: the Trump loyalty tests, and this is one of them.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: And having done an okay job of loyalty, not of
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: doing the actual job in one position, why not put
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: him in another?
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: Now?
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: What's scary here is the DNI is created as a
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: cabinet position precisely out of the traditional worry that foreign
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: policy is not independent of Congress, that a minimum there
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: has to be oversight, and so requiring as was required by.
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: Legislation, the nineteen eighties.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: A confirmation of the person who is really going to
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: be in charge of the entire intelligence oparatus is a
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: way for Congress to reassert its control. Now here's the
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: problem you mentioned, and I just want to lay out
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: what this means. The idea that he's not going to
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: be subject to confirmation because he's not being appointed as
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: the true DNI is being appointed as an interim on
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: an interim basis, and that what that does is it
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: avoids confirmation, and that is a real loophole in what
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: we're talking about.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this is how they are bypassing constitutional scrutiny.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: This is how they're getting around it. I mean, the
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Senate confirmation feels increasingly less meaningful as these presidents mainly
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Trump and others, have done it rely on the acting officials.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: What questions would you want Congress asking this guy Pulty
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: if he had to appear before confirmation hearing, because again,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: this guy has no experience in security agencies at all.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: He's here because as director of Federal Housing Finance Agency,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: he uses his access to mortgage documents to harass people.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump doesn't like. This is the guy that Donald
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Trump used to harass Letitia James, to harass Lisa Cook,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: to harass a Shift. So now he's taking this henchman
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: who only uses government jobs to go after people at
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: the behest of the executive and he's going to give
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: this guy access to all the apparatus of national security
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: to go after his enemies, right.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's exactly the reason why you know, the
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Senate confirmation was required for the DNI, and now Trump
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: is avoiding that by using this I said interim or acting,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: appointing him on an acting basis.
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: But there still is a possibility of hearings.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: You know, the president's principal officers can be compelled to
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: testify before Congress and oversight hearings. And so even though
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: we won't get the questions that I'm about to suggest
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: as a matter of confirmation, we might get them as
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: a matter of oversight. And yeah, I think the same
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: questions that I was suggesting Blanche has to be asked.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: You know, did you think it was appropriate to use
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: your position in order to enable the president's political prosecutions
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: and handing over information that was really used to go
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: after the president's political opponents.
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: That's got to be exhibit number one.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: But I think too the incompetence in the same way
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: that the lack of independence of Todd Blanche, the incombinance
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: of this individual has to be brought out. You know,
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: what gives you the ability to manage the entire foreign
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: policy apparatus of the United States? You know, when it
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: comes to intelligence, at least, what qualifications?
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: What job have you done?
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: And so I think it's partly you know about his
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: past violations of ethics and law, but it also is
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: going to be about his incompetence and totally in the
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: inappropriateness of the appointment. I think too they might use
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: these kind of hearings too to point out the fact that,
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: you know, why are you acting in a role that's
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: supposed to be subject to confirmation?
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: Why is this being abused?
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Because you could obviously not withstand up confirmation hearing, So
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: they can use it as a kind of they can
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: find a way to congress to create a kind of
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: proxy confirmation here.
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: And even if this acting position is what's being used.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: Can I ask you about what's going on at sixty
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: minutes Scory, because this has been quite fascinating. Scott Pelly
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: just was recorded in a meeting with the program's new
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: EP and pointed out that this guy had very slender
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: qualifications for the job. And he said that Barry Weiss
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: is here to murder sixty minutes, which I think a
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: lot of people would agree with. And they're very proud
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: to say, Hey, broadcast as an ice cube. It's melting.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: This is after Anderson Cooper steps down from the show,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: you know, and the First Amendment protects freedom of the press.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: So they fired him anyway, they fired him for coming
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: out and saying all this. And you've talked all the
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: time about how, yeah, the press has got total protection,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: but we're in the age of corporate media and we're
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: now in the age of stochastic self censorship. The Constitution
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: doesn't guarantee courageous journalism. Why is that distinction important? You know,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: the founder's expected conflict between government officials and journalist, right,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: that was always part of the plan.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the government has found a way to
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: both pressure through the FCC and threatening CBS's license to
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: have a kind of classical government censorship without being subject
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: to the obvious First Amendment lawsuits that would come from
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: the government shutting down speech.
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: In a more.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: Direct way, so Scott Pelly can't bring a First Amendment
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: claim against CBS. You know, maybe he could try to
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: figure out how to bring a claim against the FCC
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: head who has just repeatedly threatened the license of CBS,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: and I do think that is a kind of First
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: Amendment violation, but he certainly can't bring it against CBS itself.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: You and I had a robust discussion with Mike Pesca,
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: independent journalists and podcaster in a previous episode. I'd urge
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: people to go back and listen to it. It was
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: a great, great discussion slash debate where we were really
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: pushing the idea that this is not normal journalism.
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: And Pesca was a little more sympathetic to Barry Weiss.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: We should have him back, because I just don't see
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: how you could be now we know this from Pelly.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: We didn't know it before, but now we know it.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: We suspected it, now we know it directly.
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: She was doing.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: Things like saying in the story that he did about
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: the murder in Minnesota, correct me if I'm wrong.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: John Scott Pelley has said that she wanted the editors
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: to show the protesters as looking more menacing and violent
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: and that it was very important to her that CBS's
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: narrative was Trump's narrative that this woman was trying to
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: run a guy over in her car when she was
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: actually turning the wheels away from him to get away
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: from her.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: So that's right, she was trying to get away, and
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: I think the car was aimed away.
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: She wanted to claim the opposite.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: So, in other words, she was just manipulating the basic
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: facts of the story in order to Barry Weiss and
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: urging edits that would really just make Ice look good
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: and hide from the fact that there was essentially a
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: murder committed here.
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: And you know, what better evidence do you need for
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: the fact.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: And let's just say it plainly that Barry Weis is
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: a MAGA supporter and not some independent sure, and that
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: she is, oh yeah, crushing the most important This isn't
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: just any news show, of course, sixty minutes the most
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: important journalistic television show probably in history and is being destroyed.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: And thankfully we're at least learning the truth of what's
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: going on there because of Scott Pelley telling us after
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: his firing.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's it's just crazy. We are not
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: seeing anticipatory obedience. This is just obedience, and it's gonna
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: be interesting seeing how it plays out. We have to
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: take a break back in just a moment for the
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: final act, and we still have a lot to come.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: John Bolton versus Trump. Professor, who am I supposed to
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: root against?
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: Here?
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: This is the oath in the office.
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: Don't go away.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Oath in the Office. I'm John Fugel,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: said Corey Man. We are just packed with stories this week.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about John Bolton, the sentence I have never
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: wanted to say, former National Security advisor under Donald Trump,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: a man who waited his entire life to bomb Iran,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: and now he doesn't get to be part of the party.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: John Bolden has reached an agreement with the DOJ to
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: plead guilty for a terrible crime. A terrible crime that
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's DOJ is very upset about for those who
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: don't know. If you want to know the crime that
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has taken him down, John Bolton for committing
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: He pled guilty to retaining classified documents in a private diary.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: In one count. He's going to face up to sixty
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: months in jail in a fine of two point twenty
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: five million, one of several prominent Trump foes indicted already,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: along with James Comy and New York's ag Letitia James Corey.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: One of the most difficult constitutional questions is distinguishing legitimate
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: prosecution from politically motivated bullshit. How should citizens evaluate that distinction,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: especially in this case.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: You know, I do think just to start off that
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: there is a first of all, good point about the
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: fact that the President of the United States was under
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: indictment for under the espionage hack, for keeping secrets amar
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: Alago in his bathroom in other places. And yet it's like.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: It's like he's attacking people for committing adultery at this point.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: But I have to.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Having said that, you know, and I'm going to go
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: on to raise some complicated issues in the Bolton case,
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: it is different than the others. You know, if you're
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: a prosecutor involved in the prosecution of James Comy for
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: saying that you want to eighty six to the President
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: of the United States and claiming this is some sort
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: of threat, or going after Letitia James for some you know,
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: innocuous form that she filled out in a mortgage application,
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: there really is a question about whether or not you
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: should be disbarred. I just think that anybody involved putting
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: their name on documents involved in any way, those are
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: political prosecutions full stop. They are part of the destruction
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: of democracy that this president is attempting.
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: The Bolton case is different.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: It began, first of all, during the Biden administration. It
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: is more complicated. There's a lot of experts who have
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: looked at this who think that he is guilty of
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: the serious crime. But now here's the button where it
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: gets complicated. What do you do when there is a
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: crime committed, but the motivation for pursuing it, you know,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: at the behest of a president who's intent on revenge.
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: You know, how do you understand that?
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: And I guess my thought is that it's tainted, that
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: the president's motivation of political revenge taints what might otherwise
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: be a legitimate prosecution. Now that's a more complicated sentence
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: than in the Lea teacher James case or in the
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: James Call Me case. But I do think that's what's
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: going on here, that it's both a legitimate prosecution. No,
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: I don't think that the prosecutors involved here are you know,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: so over their skis that they should be disbarred. But
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: I also think that the president's revenge campaign and his
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: statements about Bolton tainted and make it illegitimate. And you know,
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: he's probably played guilty. That's how he's gotten out of it.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: It also does show, by the way that without full
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: convictions and going to trial, that the chilling effect is
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: very real at what's going on here, and the fact
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: that this person, with an enormous reason or it's pleads guilty,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: you know, it shows you you don't need a full
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: conviction in order to have a chilling effect of this president.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and again, a prosecution can be legally valid, it
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: can also still raise concerns about selective enforcement, and it
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: can be insanely corruptly hypocritical while still being legally valid.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: That's what we're living through here, right.
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a nice way to put it.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: You know, it's not as simple as did he do
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: it or not? I think again, it's very different than
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: the other cases. There is evidence that he broke the law,
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: and you know, the crimes are not they have a
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: seriousness to the national security matters. But yet, when you
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: have a president of the United States who's just on
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: this revenge tour. Really all of it, all of the
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: actions of the Department of Justice becomes suspect, and especially
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: this one.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just want to ask you one last question
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: about this. Are there lessons of Americans should be learning
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: from other democracies where legal systems turned it to corrupt
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: little tools of political retaliation.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: Look, you know, the definition of a system of law
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: is that you don't just have a president going after
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: their political opponents. And if you look at really any dictatorship,
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: you know I mentioned Pinochet before, or the related Argentinian
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: military dictatorship, what happened to political opponents. They were disappeared,
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: they were killed, they were imprisoned. And what defined those
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: moments was a destruction of the rule of law and
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: an instance in which the authorities or the dictators simply
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: imprisoned their political opponents. Trump has made it so clear
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: that that's what he cares about. Nixon himself was sympathetic.
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: In fact, you know, his ally Kissinger couldn't understand why
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: there were complaints in the press when there was a
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: military overthrow of an elected leader Allende in Chile. And
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: when you listen to the president, you know he admires dictators.
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: So that is what he's trying to do. And if
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: you want to.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: Know why we have a podcast called The Oath in
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: the Office and why democracy matters a president taking an
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: oath to respect the law. It's to avoid being disappeared.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: And you know, any political opponent in Trump's world would
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: be subject to the same treatment as call me and James.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: I have to just say a sentence about the call
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: me indictments because going after call me for you know,
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: the most innocuous statement eighty six, you know, which means
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: get rid of, not kill or threatened in any physical way.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: You know, if you can bring a prosecution like that,
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: you could prosecute anyone exactly.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: You can prosecute comedians, you can prosecute any kind of satire,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: which brings me to I want to end the show
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: in a positive note, Corey. Yeah, and Donald Trump lost
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: another massive court case this week. US District Judge Leo
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: serrocan struck down Trump's one hundred thousand dollars fee that
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: he invented to impose on H one B visus in
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: the case of California versus Mark Wayne Mullen. Trump signed
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Proclamation one oh nine seven three. It adds this one
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: hundred grand payment requirement for H one B petitions. This
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: is the creepiest thing I've ever heard of before. In
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: other words, it's a fast track for immigrants who can
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: afford a bribe. And you know, the plaintiffs have said,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: we're going to have so much harm from this new
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: payment system. It's going to be harder to hire teachers,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: and you know, it's going to exacerbate teachers shortages, and
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: it's going to impact our ability to staff public colleges
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: and universities. It's going to hurt academic research. So the
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: judge ruled that this one hundred thousand dollars visa fee
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: was an unlawful tax because Congress never authorized it. Is
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: this fundamentally an immigration case or is this a constitutional
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: separation of powers case?
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: Well, I think the President wanted to say, and this
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: is a great note to end on because it really
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: does encapsulate the pushback that we've talked about. And we
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: ended by talking about the threat of dictatorship and political prosecutions,
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: but we began by talking about the optimistic moment in
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: which Congress is asserting itself.
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: And that's what this case really shows. It brings us.
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: Back to one of my favorite phrases that we've all
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: heard from grade school on which is no taxation without representation.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: The very basis for the American was to say Parliament
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: can't engage in so called virtual representation, where it says
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: it knows best what it is in our interests. If
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: we're going to be tax we have to be represented.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: And that's what this case is about. Because the president's
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: claiming all the matters of immigration, I can do whatever
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: I want, and this judge says, no, this is a tax.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: And any tax, whether it's a tariff, by the way,
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: and this comes on the heel of the tariff's case,
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: it's the same point there, or an international tariff, or
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: a tax on visa or visas, or a domestic tax,
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: it's Congress that does. That's what the American Revolution was about,
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: and that's what was instituted in our constitution. No taxation
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: without representation. We need our representative body, the Congress, to
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: enact a tax. And this judge said so clearly, you're
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: not a dictator. So we talk about the danger of dictatorship,
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: and this is the pushback against it. I've got as
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: a final note mention my dear colleague Gordon Wood, who.
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: Passed the places this week.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: You know, he really talked about the radicalism of the
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: American Revolution, which is partly about no taxation without representation,
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: but it's also about the idea than in this country
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: we all see ourselves as equals, that we're not born
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: into privilege, and this president is really trying to undermine that.
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: And what Gordon.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: Wood taught in his most famous book, The Radicalism of
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: the American Revolution, was this idea that no taxation without
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: representation encapsulated a much bigger idea, which is that Americans
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: see each other as equals. He talked about the idea
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: of a credle constitution, one based in an idea of equality,
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: and that you know, that's very different than one based
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: on birth. And that's what we're all fighting for. And so,
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: you know, tribute to my dear Colli. He was ninety
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: two years old, somebody who really inspired me to talk
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: about the American Founding. He is universally regarded, not to
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: you know, often they say in obituaries, a major figure
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: or something in the American Founding. You know, he's being
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: referred to correctly as the most important of the American Founding.
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: And he really was.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: And so I'm pleased to end on that note and
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: like to think that he would have, you know, loved
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: this idea of the pushback of the American people against
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: this wanna be dictator on behalf of the true founders
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: of the United States, including one person that, of course
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: he admired, James Madison.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: We've talked for a lot about absolutely, and Ken Burns
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: had a lovely obituary for him as well. Thank you
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: for mentioning mister wood Professor, and thank you for another
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: exciting edition. I feel much smarter and I feel less
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: bleak about facing what used to be America.
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: Corey.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: What's the best way for our listeners to follow you
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: and keep up with your brilliance?
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: Subscribe you know wherever you get your podcasts. If you're
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: listening to us the first time, welcome, hit that subscribe button, leave.
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: A review, Tell a friend.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: You can find us also on the oath in the
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: office substack. We're also on YouTube if you want to
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: watch us not just listen to us. And thanks so much.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: This podcast has really taken off. We started with zero,
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: we're now really every week in the top four of
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: Apple podcasts each episode, and it's growing and growing and
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: we're becoming one of the top podcasts for information about politics,
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: about the law, about government, and certainly about the threat
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: to this democracy.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you, professor. I want to thank our listeners
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: as well, and I want to thank you and Wendy
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: and Bewolf and everyone who puts the whole show together.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Y'all can follow me on Serious XM Progress five nights
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: a week as well as my substack, and my book
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: is called Separation of Church and Hate. And Corey, I
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: just want to say how amazing it was this week
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: to see Donald Trump get to ruin an NBA Finals
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: game before he goes to ruin the World Cup, which
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: will set the stage for him to ruin the Summer Olympics.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: We live in amazing times. Thank you so much, professor
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: for keeping us smart and keeping us safe.
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: Thank you, John, what a pleasure.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: We'll see you guys next week on The Oath and
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: the Office.