Latest / Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast / Presidential Transitional Skullduggery
Transcript
- 0:00History's strange, it's alien, and it won't give us what we
- 0:04would like to have. Hour 3 of a Tuesday morning on
- 0:10the 7th of January 2025. It is the hour each week when
- 0:14we're here that Dave Bowman brings us.
- 0:16Dave does history Dave out of Silverdale, WA links to the Dave
- 0:20Bowman Show and his podcast and Dave does history posted for you
- 0:24in the first paragraph today in our show page@billmic.com.
- 0:27That page entitled CN NS scared and it should be.
- 0:31If you wonder what that's about, pick up the first hour podcast
- 0:34of the show a little bit later. Top of the page there under the
- 0:37Bill Mclod podcast and of course Florida Roundtable podcast right
- 0:40next to that. Dave.
- 0:41We've been talking about a loss of trust in government, be a
- 0:46politicians or career civil servants and at times we've got
- 0:51to wonder how much trust we have in our presidents.
- 0:54Your Dave does history today looking at transitional
- 0:59skulduggery with the presidents leaving office with another
- 1:03coming in. Give us an idea what this is all
- 1:05about. Well, we briefly hit on it in
- 1:08the last hour, talking about the fact that the outgoing
- 1:11administration is currently passing regulations, giving
- 1:17awards, as The New York Times said, designed to, quote, send a
- 1:21message and to interfere with the incoming administration.
- 1:26And this has many of you frustrated.
- 1:30And it raises the question, is this unusual?
- 1:35The transfer of power from one president to the next is pretty
- 1:38much a hallmark of the American Republic.
- 1:40It's a moment that's designed to symbolize continuity and the
- 1:45peaceful transition of authority.
- 1:48But behind this veneer of ceremonial decorum, history
- 1:54reveals instances of what can only be described as
- 1:57skullduggery and calculated use of appointments, executive
- 2:02actions, last minute regulations, all aimed at
- 2:06constraining or frustrating the incoming administration.
- 2:09Now, these acts are often carried out in the closing days
- 2:12or even hours of an outgoing president's term, and they
- 2:16reflect not not just personal or party rivalries but deeper
- 2:21tensions about the future direction of the nation.
- 2:25Presidents, as stewards of the executive branch, hold immense
- 2:29power to shape the machinery of government, from judicial
- 2:32appointments to regulatory directives.
- 2:35The final week of any administration present a unique
- 2:38opportunity to cement its legacy or in some cases, to roadblock
- 2:44their successor's agenda. Now, the motivations behind
- 2:48these maneuvers can vary. For some, it might be a matter
- 2:52of principle, an effort to safeguard policies they view as
- 2:56critical to the nation's welfare.
- 2:57For others, it's pure partisanship, an attempt to tip
- 3:01the scales in favor of their party or their ideology.
- 3:05Now, the most notorious example of this, we, we talked about it
- 3:10some weeks ago. We talked about the 1800
- 3:12election and the fact that these two candidates, John Adams and
- 3:16Thomas Jefferson, did not like each other.
- 3:19But after the election occurred and after Jefferson won,
- 3:22remember that Adams is still in office until March 20,
- 3:26twentieth, so November to March. John Adams, facing this defeat,
- 3:35rushed to appoint a slate of Federalist judges, dubbed the
- 3:38Midnight Judges, in a bid to entrench his party's influence
- 3:42in the judiciary. And it will ultimately lead to
- 3:46one of the most significant showdowns in the court's history
- 3:49and set a precedent for that interplay between outcoming and
- 3:53in going outgoing and incoming administrations.
- 3:57Later, Herbert Hoover would try to tether Franklin Roosevelt to
- 4:00his economic orthodoxy, which doesn't make sense when you
- 4:04think about it. Bill Clinton, Donald Trump.
- 4:08In recent years, they flooded the transition period with
- 4:11executive orders, pardons and appointments that all carried
- 4:14political overtones. And as we turn the calendar in
- 4:18two weeks to to the next one, maybe we've seen the most
- 4:22noticeable version of presidential transitional
- 4:24skulduggery. But the question remains as to
- 4:28how effective it may ultimately be, or whether it's as bad as
- 4:31what John Adams did when he's committed his blatant act to
- 4:36attempt to rule from beyond the Oval Office.
- 4:40We pick it up to tell you about these presidential acts when we
- 4:43continue in one minute on WMMB. So, Dave, you're saying that
- 4:49John Adams, when he became president or when he was leaving
- 4:52office rather, was one of the worst of these?
- 4:57He might not have been one of the worst, Bill.
- 5:01He might actually have been the worst.
- 5:03OK, now that's hard for us to imagine because John Adams, I
- 5:07mean, we've all seen the HBO special, we've all read
- 5:11Mccullough's book. We've all John Adams is, you
- 5:15know, he's one of the pantheon of, of people that we respect as
- 5:21presidents and as founders. Doing what's right, judicially
- 5:24right, I mean that that would be the impression.
- 5:27So after the election of 1800, which I'm not going to rehash
- 5:30here, but we did talk about last year on the show that that
- 5:35election, one of the most bruising and rude elections.
- 5:41And we read the we read the stuff today, and it's quaint to
- 5:44us. But at the time, it was the
- 5:47equivalent of people calling each other traitors, communists,
- 5:52whatever. It was a yeah, it was a it made
- 5:57the politicians of today look like Boy Scouts.
- 6:01And when the whole thing was over, of course, Jefferson had
- 6:04won. But now we've got until March
- 6:07before Adams is out. The bigger problem that Adams is
- 6:13facing right now though, not just that he's been rejected by
- 6:16the American people and his policies have been roundly
- 6:21rejected, including the Alien and Sedition Act, which made it
- 6:24a crime to criticize the president and the government in
- 6:27the United States and is still on the books and is very much in
- 6:31play for the January 6th defendants.
- 6:33He. He also lost control of
- 6:36Congress. His Federalist Party lost
- 6:38control of Congress, which meant that when the next
- 6:41administration came in, the Federalist influence was
- 6:46evaporated. It was gone.
- 6:49What to do? What to do?
- 6:52Adams and the Federalists hit on an idea that is sounds weird to
- 6:59us today, but he looks around and realizes that the one place
- 7:04that he can actually influence things after he's out of office
- 7:08is the courts. Now, we've we've talked about
- 7:12the fact that the Biden administration has talked about
- 7:15packing the courts and these kinds of things, but even FDR
- 7:21talked about doing that. But the one guy who actually
- 7:25pulled it off is John Adams in January of 18 O 1.
- 7:33So before the transition in March, the Congress, led by the
- 7:38Federalists, passed the Judicial Act of 18 O1.
- 7:44Now, the Judicial Act of 18 O one was a major reformation of
- 7:49the nation's court system. The first thing it did was it
- 7:54took away the Supreme Court justices having to ride circuit,
- 7:58in other words, having to leave Washington, DC, go out to their
- 8:00circuits and hear courses, cases like that.
- 8:03And it replaced them with district courts, 20 of them, all
- 8:09of which had to have judges appointed by John Adams.
- 8:14And of course, he picked federalist judges who would
- 8:19then, you know, uphold federalist legislation when the
- 8:25incoming Jefferson administration would attempt to
- 8:27take them to court, upholding specifically the Alien and
- 8:31Sedition Act. The second thing it did, and
- 8:34this is think about this. We always talk in terms of
- 8:37packing the court, right? What if you did the opposite?
- 8:44In other words, instead of adding seats to the court, what
- 8:48if you took them away? So at the time the court, the
- 8:51Supreme Court had six Supreme Court justices, one Chief
- 8:55Justice, 5 associate justice. The law changed it so that it
- 9:00was 51 Chief Justice, 4 associate justices.
- 9:05Which means that once the law is in effect, as soon as someone
- 9:10either retires or dies, the the president, the now incoming
- 9:16President Jefferson doesn't get to appoint a justice.
- 9:21Oh my. And who appointed the other 5?
- 9:25Adams. Including, by the way, the the
- 9:28just of the Chief Justice, John Marshall, who is a pretty loyal
- 9:33federalist, but is a great example of the idea that the
- 9:37best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.
- 9:40Because as we're going to learn in the future, these sometimes
- 9:48these justices don't do the things that you expect them to
- 9:51do. No, we've never seen that
- 9:53before, right? Yeah, it's a tax, not a penalty.
- 9:57So the idea here is that he appoints and, and, and in
- 10:01February and March, well, late January, February, early March
- 10:06of 18, O1 Adams appoints all of these justices, judges to these,
- 10:11to these district courts, 20 of them.
- 10:14There's another four that declined the appointments and
- 10:18the problem. And and of course, all these
- 10:20judges, our last minute appointees, they're all
- 10:23federalists. They're all expected to uphold
- 10:26Adams's legacy in the courts. Does it work out that way?
- 10:33Well, maybe, maybe not. But they are referred to as the
- 10:37midnight judges of John Adams. And this is really the first
- 10:41example of presidential transitional skulduggery in
- 10:44which an outgoing president really tries to hamstring and
- 10:49control what's going to happen in the future.
- 10:53Not unusual, Dave, even from the very beginning.
- 10:56Huh? Makes me kind of grateful we do
- 10:59it in January now, although I'd still like to see it be
- 11:01December. We continue Presidential
- 11:04skulduggery on Bill Mick live right here on WMNB.
- 11:09It's a take. On history you won't find
- 11:12anywhere else. Dave does history.
- 11:14On Bill Mick Live the McPherson Financial Group, bringing you
- 11:19the hours. We look at this presidential
- 11:21transition period through the years and the various things
- 11:25that presidents have done to their successors.
- 11:27And I think it's kind of funny and sad all at the same time.
- 11:30Speaking of which, though, just a quick reminder for you coming
- 11:33up Saturday night, 6 to 9 at the Space Coast Convention Center,
- 11:38I'll be moderating the Restore the Republic 2025 event from the
- 11:43Republican Liberty Caucus here of East Central Florida.
- 11:46It will feature Bob White, who's chairman of the RLC statewide,
- 11:51Republican House Majority Leader Tyler Siroi here in the state of
- 11:56Florida, the Sheriff Wayne Abbey, and Royce Bartlett, host
- 11:59of the Shooting Straight Radio podcast that you'll catch here
- 12:02on the iHeartRadio app. So be an interesting forum about
- 12:05restoring the Republic and maybe bringing some sanity back to it.
- 12:09And, and appropriately so, I believe with a focus on on
- 12:14Tallahassee and local governments and how to be
- 12:17effective there. It's not just DC where the swamp
- 12:20exists, the boys and girls. Speaking of swap action, though,
- 12:23Dave, we're seeing a lot of it as the Biden administration
- 12:26prepares to leave, but certainly not the only, and as you would
- 12:30suggest, not the worst that we've seen in this nation's
- 12:33history. I don't think it is.
- 12:35I mean, keeping in mind what Adams did, what John Adams did
- 12:39with his midnight appointments. And they weren't just judges, by
- 12:42the way, judges, by the way, all these judges he's appointing are
- 12:46lifetime appointments under the Constitution and the new law.
- 12:50So he's really trying to to to almost said a bad word there,
- 12:54really trying to mess with with the incoming Jefferson
- 12:57administration. But there are other appointments
- 13:00that he makes as well. Justice of the peace for the
- 13:04District of Columbia. He appoints one of his
- 13:06federalist buddies to that position.
- 13:09And it's that appointment that's going to cause a lot of problems
- 13:14because he does that one so late in his presidency, in the final
- 13:20hours that the actual paperwork doesn't get delivered to the
- 13:25guy. And the assumption is that the
- 13:28incoming administration then will deliver the paperwork to
- 13:31the guy. Well, Jefferson says on that,
- 13:37no. And that is going to lead to one
- 13:42of the one of the landmark cases in the history of our country.
- 13:47And it's kind of kind of put a damper on what John Adams, John
- 13:51Adams tried to do. Additionally, the incoming
- 13:55Jefferson administration with its new Congress says, you know,
- 13:59this Judiciary Act of 18 O1, we don't like that.
- 14:04And so in 18 O 2, they repeal that and replace it.
- 14:10Now, they can't really undo the judges per SE, but they do away
- 14:16with the the the reduction of the Supreme Court and they they
- 14:21kind of get things back to where the American people presumably
- 14:25wanted things. And see, that's the frustrating
- 14:28part here is what Adams was trying to do.
- 14:30Is it the will of the American people or was it the will of
- 14:34John Adams and his Federalist Party?
- 14:37We don't like to think of John Adams in those terms.
- 14:40Sounds like the latter though. But it certainly was.
- 14:44It goes on. In 1869, Andrew Johnson was the
- 14:48outgoing president. Of course, he had taken over
- 14:50after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
- 14:53He had narrowly, by one vote, survived an impeachment.
- 14:58There were a lot of people who believed that the only reason he
- 15:01survived impeachment was because the one guy that voted for him
- 15:06to acquit didn't like the guy who was going to become
- 15:09president if he was impeached. That's politics for you, right?
- 15:14Yeah, that's true. But as he was defeated.
- 15:17Probably a good reason that Joe Biden impeachment never got any
- 15:20any leg. Possibly, Yeah.
- 15:23Ulysses S Grant was incoming. Of course, Ulysses S Grant
- 15:26perhaps one of the most popular candidates ever elected to the
- 15:30presidency. So Johnson decides to start
- 15:33appointing people all over the place that that he knows don't
- 15:37like Ulysses S Grant. The problem he has is that
- 15:40Congress won't won't approve of any of his moves because they
- 15:43hate him so. So it didn't have much much
- 15:47effect. Herbert Hoover, a name that you
- 15:52don't think about in these terms.
- 15:53Hoover actually tries to do the same thing to Roosevelt when
- 15:56he's coming in. Franklin Roosevelt, he actually
- 15:58tries to pass agreements that restricts deficit spending and
- 16:03other economic measures that things that he believed in that
- 16:07would have continued the Hoover economic policies.
- 16:12Now, again, I don't really care what side of the agenda you're
- 16:14on here in 1933, do you think the American people wanted to
- 16:19continue the policies of Herbert Hoover?
- 16:21I would think not and. Neither did Roosevelt, who
- 16:24basically said no, we're not doing that.
- 16:31Dave, that it seems that this is just a repetitive pattern of
- 16:34behavior, that it's politics as usual in a presidential
- 16:39transition. Scary, isn't it?
- 16:42It is. I mean, I'm like anybody else.
- 16:47OK, In a way, I thought it was kind of funny when they pulled
- 16:51the WS off the keyboards. Yeah.
- 16:54I mean, is it childish? And yes.
- 16:58But I laughed. But is that really the worst
- 17:03thing that's been happening? Oh, absolutely not.
- 17:06Harry Truman Harry S Truman, who my father of blessed memory
- 17:12loved, hated Dwight Eisenhower. Hated Dwight Eisenhower.
- 17:18Now, you could argue that the reason he hated Dwight
- 17:21Eisenhower was because he really hated the Vice President, Dick
- 17:24Nixon. But there was a very strained
- 17:27relationship between Truman and Eisenhower, probably had a lot
- 17:30to do with Korea and the issues there.
- 17:33But in the final months of his presidency, Truman signed
- 17:36executive orders and made appointments that the Eisenhower
- 17:39administration then had to unravel or challenge, one of
- 17:45which was the last minute seizure of steel mills during a
- 17:48labor dispute. Youngstown Sheet and Tube, Sheet
- 17:53and Tube Company versus Sawyer ends up being the Supreme Court
- 17:56which actually overturns the action that the Truman
- 17:59administration take to essentially seize those steel
- 18:03mills, allegedly in the the name of the American people, the best
- 18:08interest of the American people, but really wasn't.
- 18:11And so Eisenhower instead has to waste his time dealing with this
- 18:16because Truman tried to pull that.
- 18:19Then you get into the 80s Jimmy Carter, probably probably not
- 18:24good to speak I'll of the dead today.
- 18:26But Jimmy Carter issued a slew of executive orders and made
- 18:29controversial appointments, some related to energy policies and
- 18:32environmental protections. He was trying to cement his
- 18:36legacy. But of course, Ronald Reagan,
- 18:39who had a very different policy agenda than Jimmy Carter, which
- 18:44you would have to argue again, what did the American people
- 18:48actually want? Did they want Jimmy Carter's
- 18:51environmental and energy policies, which had led to the
- 18:54malaise of the second-half of the 1970s?
- 18:59Or did they want Ronald Reagan's vision of a new morning in
- 19:02America? But Jimmy Carter said, no, I'm
- 19:04going to, I'm going to pass all the, I'm going to sign all these
- 19:07executive orders and stuff and prevent things from happening.
- 19:12Well, Ronald Reagan said bleep that and Bill Clinton in his
- 19:17final days issued a wave of executive orders and pardons,
- 19:21including the pardon of financier Marc Rich, issued
- 19:25Environmental Protection like banning road construction and 60
- 19:29million acres of National Forest.
- 19:32Course, that left George Bush and Congressional Republicans
- 19:36having to do the work to remove those before they could move on.
- 19:42It was all an attempt. All of these are attempts to
- 19:44influence and control the incoming administration.
- 19:48All of them seem to fly in the face of exactly what this
- 19:51transition is supposed to be about.
- 19:54But that's the way we seem to do things, isn't it?
- 19:58Transfer of power not as peaceful as we would like to
- 20:00believe, and we continue on that front in moments right here on
- 20:0592.7 FM WMMB. The McPherson Financial Group
- 20:11bringing you this third hour of a Tuesday morning when Dave does
- 20:14history on Bill Mick live. Your thoughts welcome as we get
- 20:18ready to wrap the day up here And Dave, we're not through
- 20:21these presidential shenanigans. You more to take a look at here.
- 20:25I mean, you'd think we'd be done, but we're not.
- 20:28Barack Obama in 2017, late 16, early 17, you know, there there
- 20:36was this all this discussion at the time about how dignified
- 20:41Obama was taking this and, you know, compared to Hillary
- 20:44Clinton and the likes of that. But at the at the time, Barack
- 20:48Obama really accelerated regulatory activity, issued
- 20:51rulings on Environmental Protection, labor, health care.
- 20:56And, of course, these regulations then had to be
- 20:58repealed or rolled back under the Trump administration, which
- 21:01was prioritizing deregulation. Biden doing the same thing
- 21:06today. Exactly.
- 21:09You could make the argument that, well, you know, you then
- 21:14you can have the whole argument about, well, you didn't win the
- 21:16popular vote and this, that the other.
- 21:19But the point is it did it did significantly hamstring the
- 21:23Trump administration, which had to spend time doing that instead
- 21:27of moving on with its agenda. But lest you think that it's all
- 21:32Democrats doing this stuff, Adams was a federalist by the
- 21:36way, and and Andrew Johnson was a Democrat too, by the way, even
- 21:41though he was Abraham Lincoln's vice president.
- 21:44Even Donald Trump, one of the most contentious transitions in
- 21:49our history. In 2021, Trump took several
- 21:53actions to try to frustrate Biden as well.
- 21:55He appointed loyalists to key positions and agencies,
- 21:58including the Pentagon, Office of Management and Budget.
- 22:02Last minute executive orders. Now, arguably, these were the
- 22:05correct ones, but he lifted COVID, certain COVID-19 travel
- 22:09restrictions. Now, you and I might agree with
- 22:11that, but the incoming Biden administration, which you could
- 22:14argue not today but other days, won the election.
- 22:19Which policy did the American people actually want?
- 22:23He pardoned allies, controversial figures that
- 22:26became a a focus of criticism and so forth and so on and so
- 22:30forth. Where do we find ourselves
- 22:31today? That's the real the real
- 22:34question is, you know, now we're sitting here seeing what's
- 22:38happening today with the Biden administration.
- 22:42Here's the uncomfortable thing with me, with the Biden, with
- 22:46what the Biden administration is doing.
- 22:49Go back to the first two hours of the show bill.
- 22:53Does anybody in this country raise your hand, show of hands,
- 22:57actually believe that Joe Biden is running the country making
- 23:00these decisions? No, the difference between what
- 23:05Biden is doing and what John Adams did is you have that
- 23:09uncomfortable realization, that uncomfortable feeling that it's
- 23:13really not Joe Biden doing this. It's that what's the words, Oh
- 23:17yeah, deep state doing it. And that that adds a, another
- 23:24layer to the veneer of all this kind of thing.
- 23:27And it makes it seem like, well, is this really what the American
- 23:32people wanted? And this time, you can't argue
- 23:34that, you know, Trump didn't win the the popular vote.
- 23:38Which policies do the American people want?
- 23:41And yet here's Joe Biden, at least ostensibly he's his his
- 23:45cyclo style name is on it saying these policies will be put into
- 23:50place and they will stop the Trumpet ministry, the incoming
- 23:53Trump administration from doing things that will change how we
- 23:57do things. But the real lesson here, Bill,
- 24:00is that none of these actually work.
- 24:05John Adams tried this with the midnight judges and the
- 24:08Judiciary Act of 18 O1. And if part of that he appointed
- 24:11the the Chief Justice John Marshall to the Supreme Court.
- 24:16Remember that Guy Marbury, who who they had the the writ for to
- 24:20be that just to be the the District of Columbia's justice
- 24:24of peace and they didn't get the paperwork to him and they
- 24:27expected the Jefferson administration to do it.
- 24:29And Jefferson said no, he sued the Jefferson administration.
- 24:35Marbury did, saying, hey, my appointment was legit.
- 24:38You should appoint me even though you don't like it.
- 24:43This went all the way to the United States Supreme Court,
- 24:46where John Marshall, who was known as the great Chief
- 24:49Justice, not my moniker, came up with one of the most influential
- 24:55decisions in the history of the United States.
- 24:57And we're not going to talk about what the decision was, but
- 25:00in that decision, John Marshall basically stated the policy of
- 25:06judicial review, in which he basically said pretty much a
- 25:10quote. It's kind of a paraphrase.
- 25:12The Constitution means what we decide it means, meaning the
- 25:15Supreme Court. We're the ones who interpret the
- 25:19Constitution, not you. We do that.
- 25:22That's our job. And from that day forward,
- 25:26that's been the operational assumption that we've had in
- 25:30this country, that it's the Supreme Court that decides this.
- 25:34And of course, in doing so, overturned what Adams had wanted
- 25:38to do. So his his great plan kind of
- 25:40went out the window. You'd have to argue Herbert
- 25:44Hoover's plans went out the window.
- 25:45Jimmy Carter's plans went out the window.
- 25:48Bill Clinton's plans, with the exception of the the WS off the
- 25:52keyboards, probably went out the window.
- 25:54Andrew Johnson never got his through.
- 25:57The lesson here is that it seems like the harder these presidents
- 26:00try to do this stuff, the more it kind of backfires on them.
- 26:04Now, what's going to happen this year?
- 26:06I don't know. There's discussion right now,
- 26:08Bill, about whether or not a Presidential Medal of Freedom
- 26:10can be rescinded. The answer appears to be yes,
- 26:17But if you're the president of the United States incoming, is
- 26:20that really what your focus is going to be?
- 26:22You risk looking petty if you do.
- 26:25And, and as I asked the other day, if I have one of these and
- 26:28the president resents it, am I going to give it back?
- 26:32No, they'll send people to come and take it and raid your house
- 26:34at midnight, you know, whatever. Maybe the lessons for us today
- 26:38should be this. As the American people, we ought
- 26:42to be looking to respect the peaceful transfer of power, and
- 26:46we ought to be holding our leaders accountable for that.
- 26:50Maybe that's one of the questions that should be asked
- 26:52during the debates leading into a presidential election.
- 26:55If you are defeated, how will you handle the the transition?
- 27:00What will you do to make this smooth?
- 27:04I don't like the guy. I wouldn't have voted for him.
- 27:06But, you know, Woodrow Wilson had a plan that if he had lost
- 27:09the election in 1916, you know what he was going to do, Appoint
- 27:13his opponent as the Secretary of State immediately.
- 27:18And then he and his vice president were going to resign
- 27:20immediately. Guess who becomes president at
- 27:23that time then? The new Secretary of State, the
- 27:28guy that defeated him. Say what you will, but that's
- 27:31recognizing the will of the American people.
- 27:34It is. I've never heard that.
- 27:36We need to focus on our national unity.
- 27:39We need to prepare for governing, not just winning.
- 27:43We we so rarely talk about it in those terms.
- 27:48The temptation of retaliation, this tit for tat pettiness that
- 27:54has just become the hallmark of Washington DC, and to some
- 28:00degree our states as well. Absolutely.
- 28:03And we, the American people, need to honor civility in
- 28:06leadership. We need to let these people know
- 28:08this is what we expect, this is what we want.
- 28:14Will we ever do it? Kind of doubt it, but.
- 28:18It also falls to who we choose to go to Congress and and to
- 28:21these other elected positions. If we are tolerant of of less
- 28:28than ethical people, we get what we ask for.
- 28:32But part of that problem is it becomes more important about
- 28:35winning, not necessarily governing.
- 28:40And we're back your calls coming up at 321-768-1240 in just 30
- 28:45seconds on WMMB. We are in that presidential
- 28:49transition period. Now let's get to the phones.
- 28:52Dave, line one. You're up on Bill Mick live.
- 28:54Good morning. Good morning, Bill.
- 28:56This is Rick and Milburn. Yeah.
- 28:57Rick, what's up here? Hey, oh Biden, you know, if I
- 29:00said oh Biden, I wonder what his chances, what y'all think of him
- 29:05legalizing all the illegals before you leave?
- 29:08Office, I don't know that there's a mechanism to do it.
- 29:13Well, he could write it down and just like he does, did the
- 29:16banning, the oil drilling and everything make them illegal?
- 29:20I don't think citizenship works that way.
- 29:23I don't think there's a possibility of that.
- 29:25Dave, any thoughts there? No, I don't think it's I I could
- 29:28he write an executive order that functionally does that?
- 29:32He could. The problem is that it's an
- 29:33executive order, not a law. He's not going to get it through
- 29:36Congress because he doesn't control Congress.
- 29:39Which means that sure, he could try it, but again, most of these
- 29:44things don't work. Now, would it tie up the
- 29:47incoming administration having to deal with the fallout from
- 29:50that? Probably.
- 29:52Is it something that I think he would try that May that's the
- 29:57judge, don't worry that. He might actually try it, right?
- 30:00As the judge said to the the CNN people, that's just a little too
- 30:03far. Back to the phones line one good
- 30:07morning. You're on Bill Mick live.
- 30:09Good morning, Mario. Cape Canaveral.
- 30:11Yeah, Mario, great discussion. I've noticed over the decade
- 30:15that when the Liberals are in power they tell everyone to go #
- 30:20sand and they and they use strong arm tactics and
- 30:24everything legal and illegal they can do and semi legal
- 30:29they'll need to send the FBI after an ex president.
- 30:33But one they are not in power. They talk about compromise and
- 30:37can't we all just get along? Yeah, I don't think you're wrong
- 30:42there. And I think that is, I don't
- 30:45know, wise politically of them to be that way.
- 30:47Huh. Don't we wish at times that
- 30:50Republicans would act more like they're in charge than they have
- 30:53chosen to do? And Republicans get criticized
- 30:56for that. They've fairly frequently.
- 30:58Yeah, I mean, that's in a way that's what people do, you know?
- 31:04I mean, they're be as wise as serpents, as innocent as doves.
- 31:09So politicians learn from that and they they understand that
- 31:14when they're out of power, they need to suck up the people.
- 31:16And when they're in power, then they can do what they want.
- 31:19That's probably a good way to put that they suck up the people
- 31:22line. 2 Good morning. Give us your thoughts here.
- 31:25Good morning, Bill Brody. Happy New Year and happy belated
- 31:28Hanukkah to you, Dave. Quick question for you, Dave.
- 31:32Just generally, who is your favorite president?
- 31:35That's all. Thanks bro.
- 31:38You're not going to like my answer because nobody ever does.
- 31:40My favorite president is is Warren G Harding.
- 31:44Do you want to know why? Of course.
- 31:49Of course we do, yeah. If you know anything about me on
- 31:53a personal level, you know that driving is one of my favorite
- 31:55things to do. It's one of the most relaxing
- 31:57things. And Warren G Harding was
- 31:59actually the first president to have his own driver's license.
- 32:03And in the words of Dave Berry, who I quote quite often, Warren
- 32:08G Harding was the 1st president in the history of our country
- 32:11who, when caught up in scandal and controversy and all those
- 32:18problems, instead of arguing about it, instead of defending
- 32:22himself in court, he just died. Well, there's a way to go, I
- 32:29guess, yeah. And of course his his death led
- 32:32to Calvin Coolidge, who is probably the to me.
- 32:35Calvin Coolidge is probably my favorite.
- 32:37I I like Warren Harding, but Calvin Coolidge is probably my
- 32:39favorite. All right, very, very good.
- 32:43Have Dave, have you looked ahead?
- 32:44I heard you say, oh, what the frock this weekend.
- 32:46You've done a lot of planning for this year ahead, even though
- 32:49there may be obstacles to some of that.
- 32:51What are we looking at next week?
- 32:52We're. Going to take a look at one of
- 32:54the most interesting map situations in the United States.
- 32:58You ever look at a map of Michigan?
- 33:01Yes. Why does Michigan have that part
- 33:03up that's connected to Wisconsin?
- 33:05Anybody know? I mean, I know, but it's because
- 33:08of something called the Toledo War, at a point where the state
- 33:13of Ohio was willing to shoot at the people from Michigan over
- 33:20that little peninsula that doesn't touch either one of
- 33:22them. Are you saying we're going to
- 33:25have a Bengals? A Lion Super Bowl.
- 33:28I'm just saying the first Civil War was almost in 1835 and it
- 33:31was over Toledo. Of all places.
- 33:35Well, we wouldn't have Max Clinger without it.
- 33:38Thanks Dave. Check out more.
- 33:43Stories from history at. Davedoeshistory.org.