Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / 'It's about corruption!' Lawyer who is combating Trump's push to put name on Kennedy Center

Transcript

'It's about corruption!' Lawyer who is combating Trump's push to put name on Kennedy Center · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We're just about an hour away from an emergency court
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: hearing over President Trump's push to get his name back
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: on the Kennedy Center. Here's a live look at the building,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: which has remained partially covered. You can see that tarp
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: there since a judge ordered his name be taken down.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Today's hearing is also the first since the administration threatened
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: to demolish the entire building unless the president gets the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: renovations he wants. Joining me now is someone who has
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: been fighting the administration on this case, Norm Eisen, founder
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund. He's been working
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: with Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, an ex-officio member of the
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Kennedy board. David Drucker is also back with us. Norm,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: give us a preview of what we can expect from
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: this hearing coming up soon.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Eugene, we have told the court that after it, instructed
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump to remove his name from the Kennedy Center.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: It is against the law for him now to want
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: to put his name on it two more times. Basically,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: it was removed from above John Kennedy's name. He says, well,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I'm going to put it on twice now. Below John
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Kennedy's name. No, we've said to the court, that's a
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: violation of your order. He also wants to rename the
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: plaza that you see there, the area in front of
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: the Kennedy Center for himself. That's against the law. And
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: also there's this ridiculous... statement that they might have to
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: tear down the Kennedy Center and build an amphitheater if
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: it can't be named for Trump. We've said that's absurd
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: and against the law. This is not just about protecting
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: the memory of a fallen president and a cultural institution
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: for our nation, Eugene. It's about corruption. Donald Trump should
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: not be able to take over a priceless building, slap
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: his name on it, essentially take it for himself. And
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: he should not be able to defy the Constitution and laws,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Congress names. this and our other institutions, not Donald Trump.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: So much larger corruption and constitutional stakes at issue here. Yeah.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Norm, you mentioned their threats, I guess, to demolish the Senate.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I want to read a quote from your motion that
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: talks about that. You write, in plain English, defendants have
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: not so subtly said, what a nice Kennedy Center you
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: have there. What a shame should something happen to it.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: This is a breathtaking assault on the rule of law.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: It is delusional and it must stop. The Kennedy Center
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Board says the building is structurally unsound. They say it's unsafe. Decrepit,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I think, is one of the words that they used
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: that that must be temporarily closed to completely renovate. It
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: seems like all of this, so much resource, so much
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: brain space in the administration is about Donald Trump's ego here.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: And sure, there are things that can be fixed. We've
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: all been to the Kennedy Center. You know, there's some
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: things there. There's mice at the Kennedy Center. But this
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: feels like not the way to do it, Norm.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, and the foolishness of it, Eugene. The corruption, the
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: constitutional crisis. Why isn't he focusing on another crisis, the
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: cost crisis? The American people elected him to bring their
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: costs down, to put money in their pockets, not to take.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Things of value away from them. So it's just so ludicrous.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: He has historically low approval ratings and threatened to threatening
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: to destroy a monument to a fallen president just makes
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: it worse.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: We've been there. It can be repaired. That can happen
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: while the Kennedy Center is open. For heaven's sakes, we
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: just had the Kennedy Center honors there. We had the
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Melania documentary, red carpet preview. It's fine. It can operate
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: while it's being repaired, as has that's how it's gone
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: in the past. That's what we need here.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: David, there's the legal that Norm just laid out. There's
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: also the political and the cultural.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: You have President Trump, who is obsessed with making sure
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: that his name is kind of around Washington, D.C., at
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: different places. But voters, I have talked to a lot
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: of voters, Republicans, Democrats, independents. who say they don't really
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: care if he what he's doing about in Washington, D.C.,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: about the beautification. But what they care about is he's
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: not paying attention to their needs. So had he you know,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: if he was gluing gold things around the Oval Office
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: and caring and fixing the affordability problem, that'd be one thing.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: But his focus here seems to be completely off of
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the ball.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Norm spoke eloquently there about executive overreach and sort of
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: alluded to the fact that none of this would be
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: happening if Congress was jealous of its own power. Because
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: they would just tell the executive branch, agree or disagree,
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: you don't get to do this.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: We get to decide this.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: They're completely absent.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Politically, Eugene, you hit the nail on the head.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: Voters are unhappy with the economy. They're unhappy with the
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: president's performance on the economy. The polling trends have been
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: clear and consistent for some time. But what's a sort
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: of double whammy hitting the president and his party is
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: that voters don't even think he's focused in the right place.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: And if you look at past midterm elections, one of
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: the things that gets presidents in trouble, this includes the
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: 2010 midterm election and that shellac. We played the recording earlier,
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: President Obama responding to that. We think of it as
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: the Obamacare election, but in large part. When we looked
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: at the polling, it was also the fact that voters
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: at the time felt that health care reform was a
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: laudable goal, but that they wanted the president to focus
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: on the economy.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: They didn't think he did so sufficiently.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: That is especially the case as we approach the 2026
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: midterm elections. And particularly because the president is focused on
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: putting his name all over the place. There are big,
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: huge pictures on some of the federal websites. cabinet agency
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: buildings in Washington that we haven't talked about. And this
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: is the sort of thing that particularly when you're not
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: getting the big stuff right, it really rubs voters the
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: wrong way. And it is causing the GOP huge problems.