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Speaker 1: Hither duplicy el.

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Speaker 2: President Joe Biden has condemned the Supreme Court's decision on

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Speaker 2: immunity this morning.

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Speaker 3: Today's decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no

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Speaker 3: limits or the president can do. This is a fundamentally

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Speaker 3: new principle, and it's a dangerous president because the power

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Speaker 3: of the office will no longer be constrained by the law,

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Speaker 3: even including the Supreme Court of the United States. The

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Speaker 3: only limits will be self imposed by the president of law.

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Speaker 2: The U s. Supreme Court is ruled that presidents have

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Speaker 2: absolute immunity from prosecution for their official acts, no immunity

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Speaker 2: for their unofficial acts their non official acts. This means

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump will have significant immunity on charges of trying

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Speaker 2: to overturn the last election. Now Randy Zellen is a

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Speaker 2: Cornell University Cornell University law professor and with us now, hey, Randy, Hey,

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Speaker 2: is this as wild as it looks?

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Speaker 1: No, it is not as wild as it looks. First

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Speaker 1: of all, President Biden himself should be thankful for the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court or its decision today, because Donald Trump has

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Speaker 1: all but shouted from Mountain high that if he is

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Speaker 1: re elected as president, there's going to be retribution, and

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Speaker 1: certainly one of the prime targets of mister Trump's retribution

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Speaker 1: is sure to be Joe Biden, who he has consistently

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Speaker 1: claimed is responsible for all of these criminal prosecutions. So

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Speaker 1: if former President Trump cannot be prosecuted for official acts

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Speaker 1: while he was president, then right now President Biden wants

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Speaker 1: he's out of office, will not be able to be

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Speaker 1: prosecuted for official acts while he was in office. So

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Speaker 1: this sound by it sounds good now, but once President

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Speaker 1: Biden is out of office, I wonder if he'll be

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Speaker 1: singing the same to it.

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Speaker 2: So, in a dissenting opinion, Justice Soto Mayo said that

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Speaker 2: this will basically make it possible for future presidents to

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Speaker 2: be able to order the Navy Seal Team six to

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Speaker 2: assassinate a political rival. Is that true?

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Speaker 1: No, I think that's a bit dramatic the reality. From

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Speaker 1: my perspective, I think the Supreme Court looked down at

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Speaker 1: all of US citizens and said, you know what, guys,

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Speaker 1: we are not going to be your babysitters. You want

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Speaker 1: to elect people in office who haveous, dubious character and

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Speaker 1: do questionable things, well, don't come to us expecting us

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Speaker 1: to clean up your mess. So what we're going to

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Speaker 1: do is, like parents, we're going to set guidelines. We're

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Speaker 1: going to set rules. We can't cover every single eventuality,

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Speaker 1: we can't cover every single possibility everything you could do wrong.

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Speaker 1: We'll take it one step at a time, but we're

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Speaker 1: going to leave it to people below us to figure

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Speaker 1: out when you do something right and when you screw up.

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Speaker 1: So good luck, Randy.

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Speaker 2: Is what is stopping the president if he was to say,

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Speaker 2: if it was Trump and he had I'm just saying,

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Speaker 2: you know, hypothetically, he had a potential rival he wanted

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Speaker 2: to take out, and he got the guy assassinated and

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Speaker 2: then said that was part of my official duties. The

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Speaker 2: guy was a three. What's stopping him from doing that

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Speaker 2: and escaping?

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Speaker 1: Well, Well, what would happen is, according to the Supreme Court,

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Speaker 1: the president could be charged criminally. He would then raise immunity,

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Speaker 1: and it would be up to a court to determine

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Speaker 1: on a case by case basis whether or not what

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Speaker 1: the president did was within his official act as president

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Speaker 1: of the United States. Now, you have to keep in

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Speaker 1: mind that the Supreme Court in the United States said, basically,

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Speaker 1: there were three possibilities. There are those acts of the

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Speaker 1: president that are conclusive that we don't need to look

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Speaker 1: at it, and it's clear that that was an official

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Speaker 1: and therefore the president has absolute immunity. Then you have

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Speaker 1: those instances the polar opposite, which is, sorry, the president

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Speaker 1: was not acting in his official capacity. If the president

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Speaker 1: went in shoplifted at a seven to eleven, that's certainly

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Speaker 1: not acting in an official capacity. So it's the in

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Speaker 1: between that the Supreme Court is saying, we're going to

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Speaker 1: take it case by case. There may be a presumption

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Speaker 1: that the president was acting in an official capacity, but

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Speaker 1: that presumption can be overcome. So this decision I don't

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Speaker 1: think is as earth shattering and traumatic as it seems

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Speaker 1: to be. It's simply a matter of we never had

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Speaker 1: to be concerned about this because in our history one

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Speaker 1: other time maybe if you want to look at President Nixon,

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Speaker 1: and he was smart enough to resign before things got

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Speaker 1: too hot, and then President Ford pardoned him. So this

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Speaker 1: is the first time in our history that we're being

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Speaker 1: tested to this level. So it's uncharted territory, and I

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Speaker 1: think the Supreme Court did the best that it could

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Speaker 1: not to go too far one way or the other

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Speaker 1: and leave it to the trial courts on a case

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Speaker 1: by case basis to determine whether or not there's immunity.

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Speaker 2: Randy, it's always good to talk to you. Thank you

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Speaker 2: so much for giving us some perspective. That's Randy Zellen,

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Speaker 2: Cornell University law professor.

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Speaker 1: For more from Hither Dupless Yellen Drive, listen live to

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Speaker 1: news talks.

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