WEBVTT - Trump’s Lawlessness + Showdown With SCOTUS Looming? 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:07.480 Happy Monday, and welcome to another week of the Trump administration. 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:10.680 We are getting awfully close to the one hundred day mark. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:15.480 And just just to put this in perspective, think about 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:19.760 how tumultuous this first ninety plus days has been on 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:22.680 the American economy, on the American judicial system, on the 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:27.639 American democracy, on foreign affairs. Just think about the things 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.520 that have happened that we have not had follow up on. 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:36.080 I think about here as a DC person who uses 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:38.639 National Airport a lot. I'll be honest with you, I'm 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:43.680 still I would like to know what happened the night 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:48.159 that we had that deadly plane crash where a military 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:53.640 helicopter was essentially got in the way of the landing 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.160 of a commercial airliner. We've not gotten the after action report. 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:01.480 There's not been the congressional investment mitigations that you would expect. 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.240 Yet we really haven't had anything. And you know, and 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:07.840 part of this you can maybe chalk up to the 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.039 news cycle. Part of it is the whole Trump administrations 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:16.559 throw a thousand things at the wall, and things get lost, 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.200 and you sit there and it appears as if we 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.600 only have the band that generically the media only has 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:25.840 the bandwidth to do one story at a time. So 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.200 when we were in the middle of the rescue operation, 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:30.760 we got a lot of details on everything we could 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:32.800 figure out in the seventy two hours in and around 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.240 that plane crash. But we haven't had any good reporting since. 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.160 Congress as usual has been sitting on its hands. I mean, look, 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:42.480 we have an issue here where we have a very 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:46.920 tumultuous period in American government and in American history. It's 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:49.760 a busy executive branch and a busy judicial branch. The 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:52.760 legislative branch is sitting on its hands. Doesn't appear to 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:56.560 be doing anything other than figuring out how to not 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:00.760 at least the Republican majorities, not to alien Donald Trump 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:04.360 or Donald Trump's megabase. Beyond that, it doesn't look like 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:10.040 Congress is doing much. There's some rhetoric and about things 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:11.960 that they could be doing or should be doing. I 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:14.680 think we're all waiting for the oversight earing on signal 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:19.440 Gate and exactly what did Peak hag seth declassify to 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:25.160 put on vulnerable private communications systems. We think we have 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:27.680 the backstory is how the National Security Advisor put a 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.280 reporter on that group, but we still don't know why 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:33.280 there was so much ease with which the Secretary of 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:38.359 Defense shared what was classified information on that. We're still 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:40.919 waiting for those hearings. We're still waiting for that investigation. 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.040 We know that Donald Trump fired so many inspector generals 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:48.320 that it is slowing down investigations that would really be 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:50.440 sort of routine. I mean, the fact of the matter 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:54.880 is there's always issues that the government has to figure 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:59.080 out what went wrong. Bob Gates, the former Secretary of 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.680 Defense for George W. Bush and Barack Obama, once said, 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:06.119 once said that he tells President said, on any given day, 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:10.920 somebody is fucking up, and pardon my French, there in 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.000 your name, mister president. And he has said that to 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:14.959 President Bush, and he has said that to President Obama. 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:17.440 I meaning, the federal government is so big that no 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.119 matter how well it is run, how efficient things are, 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.079 there's somebody making a mistake in your name, causing you, 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.800 at a minimum a political problem and a maximum a 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:30.600 policy problem that impacts the public. And yet we seem 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:35.880 to be almost paralyzed in our ability to deal in 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:39.400 totality everything that's going on. In many ways, I would 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:41.160 argue the first ninety days of Donald Trump have been 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:47.000 my demolition man. He is just trying to demolish norms 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.080 all over the place. He is trying to he is 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:54.920 forcing the judiciary branch and trying to see how much 0:03:55.000 --> 0:04:00.480 executive power he can get the judiciary to essentially approve 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:05.280 of or not stop. And the way any administration works, 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:07.480 this is why this is such a dangerous period in 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:12.680 the history of this country because if this judiciary essentially 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:14.960 allows some of these things to go, they become precedent, 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:18.840 and what happens is future presidents take whatever minimum they 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:22.360 have and then push even further. So you know, this 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:27.440 is why we're sitting here with essentially vulnerable to one 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.240 individual's belief on how the economy should work, rather than 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.920 having Congress make these decisions on tariffs. We're sitting here 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:37.520 because the congressional branch handed all this power to the 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.160 executive branch. It went back to not arguably this started 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.560 with nine to eleven. Actually it started before then, when 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.159 more trade authority was being handed to the Clinton administration. 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.680 Then nine to eleven, more national security authority got handed 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:54.200 the executive branch. With Barack Obama, he had an all 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:57.479 his party had full control of the trifecta he got 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:01.880 handed more executive power. Donald Trump grabbed more executive power 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:05.159 the first term. Joe Biden grabbed more and pushed the 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:08.680 envelope with what he tried to do with student loans, 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:12.200 which was another essentially executive branch power grab. And now, 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.880 of course, this one, which is really doesn't have any 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:20.400 precedent arguably unless you go back to FDR and Lincoln, 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:26.120 who did grab extra executive power under the guys of war, 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.040 and those were actual wars. Right now, we have these 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:34.960 various emergencies that the president has declared in order to 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.800 try to fast track deportations in this country, try to 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.760 fast track trade authority in this country, try to fast 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:45.640 track a few things here. So the point is he 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:50.039 has done you know, the Steve Bannon had taken Steve 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:55.240 Bannon's advice, which is just essentially just flood the zone 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.320 and try to knock your political opponents and make them 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:02.560 woozy and own sort of pick one. And this is 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:07.960 the cynical aspect of what the Trump administration is doing. Ironically, 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.080 if a democratic administration we're doing, I'm sure Stephen Miller 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.880 would be filing all sorts of legal briefs to claim 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:17.720 that this is an abusive executive power. All he's doing 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:23.000 is essentially testing the electric fence of executive power and 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.159 pushing the envelope, pushing the envelope at the border, pushing 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:31.480 the envelope when it comes to what say so a 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.359 government should have over a private organization like a university 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:41.200 Ala Harvard, pushing the envelope on trade and terrorf authority. 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.359 And you have a democratic party that is divided in 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.560 how to respond, right, you have some that are nervous 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:52.719 about drawing a full line in the sand, for instance, 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:54.440 when it comes to due process having to do with 0:06:54.480 --> 0:07:02.000 Killmark Garcia, the accidentally deported Else Salvadoran migrant who is 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:07.679 now sitting in a prison cell in El Salvador. Over 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:12.120 on Friday, Chris van Holland, Democratic senator from Maryland did 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:14.840 meet with them. We saw that the El Salvador president 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.080 try to create a create some propaganda claiming they were 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.880 sipping margaritas, and sort of the absurdity of our information, 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.160 of our misinformation ecosystem that we all now have to 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.840 navigate these days. The fact that Chris van Holland had 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:33.640 to spend five minutes explaining, hey, look, if you notice 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.160 nobody took any SIPs out of this. This was essentially 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:40.960 the El Salvadoran government trying to create a warped picture 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:45.080 of the situation. The most important piece of news though, 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:47.920 out of that meeting is the fact that Garcia is 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.960 not in the more notorious prison that is nicknamed Seacott. 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:54.240 The fact that they put him in another prison, I 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:56.840 think tells you the El Salvadoran government is a bit 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:00.240 nervous and the Trump administration is a bit nervous. Want 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:04.440 to make sure nothing happens to him physically, so if 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:09.080 nothing else, the attention has probably kept him alive, or 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:12.000 at least kept him physically more safe than he would 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:17.280 be if he were in that more notorious prison. But 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:20.000 the question I keep coming back to is there is 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.880 a legal way to do this, but the Trump administration 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:26.680 doesn't want to do it. They don't want to abide 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:28.800 by a court order, they don't want to even get 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:31.400 caught trying. They don't even want to fake it. They 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.560 don't have the ambassador, you know, getting a meeting with 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:36.920 the President of Al Salvador and the president saying sorry, 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:39.920 we're not releasing it. At least that could they could 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.520 claim they were following the court order that said that 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:46.120 the government had to facilitate and essentially make an effort 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:48.800 give it the Old College try guys to try to 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.400 get him out. And they're not even doing that. They're 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:54.920 not trying at all. And that's what you got to 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.760 ask yourself. Why aren't they doing that? Do they just 0:08:57.800 --> 0:08:59.560 think this is good politics for them? Well? I do 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:03.040 think that they believe that everything they've done so far 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:07.240 that individually, if Democrats try to push back on any 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.680 one thing individually, they can somehow win an argument at 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:13.280 least have their base come up and help them own 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:17.400 the Libs right. Just notice the sort of demagogic rhetoric 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.080 that the White House has been using having to do 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.040 with kill Mark Garcia. That the fact that anybody questioning 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:28.720 whether they followed the law in deporting him and giving 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:30.719 him due process, which I promise you they did not, 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:33.360 by my count. You'll hear this in the interview with 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:35.679 Ben Wittis. I think he's violated the first, the fourth, 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:37.760 the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, and the 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:43.000 ninth amendments. Okay, And on Garcia alone, I think they 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.520 have violated the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth Amendments, okay, 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.200 all of them. The first Amendment has been violated in 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:52.160 other ways, including with their dealings with the Associated Press. 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.000 I don't I don't see any evidence yet that they 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.319 have violated the second or the third, and we can 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.640 have a debate about whether they violated the tenth yet. 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:02.839 But again we're not even at day one hundred, so 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:08.200 give them time. There's always a chance. But the cynical 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:12.000 view of this administration is that they believe if they 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:15.199 have the Democrats all are all sort of standing up 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:19.560 for Garcia because of the lack of due process, that 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:22.360 instead they can say, hey, look, Democrats are willing to 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:26.320 fight harder for non citizens than they are for you. 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.000 They weren't fighting for you when they were letting these 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.720 folks in. And so it's a mindset where they believe 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:35.800 the ends justifies the means as long as they have 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.680 shut the border down, and they have used some very 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:43.280 aggressive means to shut the border down. But frankly, there 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:48.079 means that the Biden administration only started using in the 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:52.760 last six months of that administration. The fact is the 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:57.720 Biden administrations in the first two years refuse to let 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.640 DHS do its job. Secretary Orcus when he was deputy 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.640 with Jay Johnson and the second Obama administration, they knew 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.560 how to control the border, and he was trying to 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.720 implement the exact same policies that they did the first time. 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:13.280 And the fact of the matter is that first White 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:17.439 House would not do it. There was absolutely an ideological 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.640 brick wall that Mayorcis ran into during the ron Klaan 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.440 era of the White House, and then when that went 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.400 from Clain designs, the thing that changed the most if 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:34.480 you actually look at border policy, that was the biggest 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:36.960 dramatic change. So I don't want to sit here and 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:41.640 say that the Democrats didn't help create the mess at 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:45.359 the border and certainly didn't do enough that could be done. 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.560 Donald Trump left them a legal quagmire when he left 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:51.600 office during the COVID era at the border, But it's 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:53.760 not as if the Biden administration managed it very well 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:55.640 in the first two years. They did get their arms 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.240 around it eventually, but it was after there was a 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:01.440 new chief of staff and after frankly, it had already 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:06.720 become a political problem. So the Trump folks just believe 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:09.520 that if they can just make this an immigration issue. 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.280 First of all, Notice what we're not talking about tariffs. 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:17.640 We're not talking about the economic disaster that is coming. Now. 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:19.640 This is a bit of a lagging indicator, right. All 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.840 of the current economic figures that have been coming out 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:25.199 are of what's happened in the previous thirty days, or 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:28.320 the previous sixty days, or the previous ninety days. The 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:30.920 fact is we're going to start to see arise in 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:34.800 prices probably in the next sixty to ninety days. You're 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:39.040 not seeing them right in the moment, right, because plenty 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.800 of American companies have inventory that they got in before 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:45.439 the tariffs hit, so prices are only just now starting 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.280 to creep up, and that, of course will then start 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:50.920 this spiral that could get really ugly for a while. 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:56.080 Rising prices, inflation, stagnant wages, layoffs. You can see where 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:59.640 this is headed. But in the short term, as all 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.280 the folks, because it has been on the one issue, 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:05.679 because apparently only one issue can be done at a time, 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.200 there's been this debate in the Democratic Party about whether 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.439 how hard they should go. You have had Gavin Newsom 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:16.800 who sees the Kilmore Garcia story as a distraction. You 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:18.760 have others that say, if you don't draw a line 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:23.199 in the stands somewhere. Then what's the point of being 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.440 a political party you're in the opposition. The fact of 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:28.120 the matter is, I do think the party needs to 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:31.160 figure out how to have one message, and I think 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:35.280 the chaos message which worked in the first administration, right, 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:39.200 The fact is the public doesn't like the chaos. Individual 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:42.680 goals that Donald Trump has outlined are things the public 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.480 would like to see a safe and secure border, more 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:50.800 manufacturing jobs in America. But how he's gone about doing it, 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:55.160 upending the world economy, upending due process and the rule 0:13:55.200 --> 0:14:00.839 of law. That isn't what the public wants. They don't 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:05.240 like how this is being done, and the political opposition 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:07.760 I don't think has done a good enough job sort 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:12.640 of framing this as that as incompetency, because ultimately that's 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:17.800 what this has been, complete and utter incompetence. On the tariffs, 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.480 if you wanted to do this, there was a more 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.560 systematic way to do this. On the border, if you 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:25.920 wanted to do this, there was a more systematic way 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.400 to do this. But ultimately, the only conclusion one can 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.440 come to is it looks like the conclusion that our 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:38.000 friends at National Review came to over the weekend when 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:42.560 it seems as if the administration wants to test the 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:46.920 limits of executive power, so they don't care if they 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:52.440 knowingly essentially violate the law. And see how hard is 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:54.760 the judiciary going to push back? How hard is the 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:57.200 Supreme Court going to push back? And I promise you 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.400 this is you know, I keep using this metaphor, but 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.880 if you give a if you give this administration a cookie, 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.560 they're going to come back and take more, and take more, 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.000 and take more and take more. So it is a 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:13.120 very cynical view of the executive that this administration has taken. 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.920 And you have people around the president that are looking 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:22.480 to essentially turn this country into a It's not a 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.080 republic if this is if the executive gets as strong, 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.840 it's a borderline monarchy. And in fact, I do find 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:35.000 it interesting that the governor of Massachusetts on April nineteenth, 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:39.120 the anniversary of the shot heard around the world, had 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.520 this to say at a rally. She said the following, 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:45.120 this is more healing democratic Governor of Massachusetts. She was 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:49.440 in conquered Massachusetts again, home conquered in Lexington, right home 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:51.280 of the shot heard around the world. We live in 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:53.280 a moment when our freedoms are once again under attack 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.360 from the highest office in the land. We see things 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.600 that would be familiar to our revolutionary predecessors, the silencing 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:03.640 of critics, the disappearing of people from our streets, demands 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:08.120 for unquestioning fealty. So that was an attempt by at 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.480 least one Democrat to try to take everything President Trump 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:15.000 has done and try to put it in a larger context. 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.480 And I think that what the Trump administration is counting 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:20.920 on is to be able to isolate each of these 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.360 criticisms into one and turn it into oh, so you 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:26.400 want terrorists to be roaming free around the country type 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.120 of type of you know, have you stopped? You know? 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:31.760 In one of the metaphors we like to use in media, 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.200 when did you stop beating your wife? Right? What's an 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:36.880 example of the worst kind of leading question what I 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:38.880 just said, when did you stop beating your wife? 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:38.960 So? 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:43.119 When did you stop supporting terrorists? Is essentially the conversation 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.320 that the Trump administration wants to have every time a 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.760 Democrat says, hey, how you did this? How you are 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:52.840 deporting these people is unconstitutional and against the law. What's 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.320 interesting is that there's plenty of Republicans that believe this, 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.000 most of them don't want to say a word. By 0:16:58.000 --> 0:16:59.720 the way, have you noticed you may need to put 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.640 an a out for Lindsey Graham. One of the patterns 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:04.560 to Lindsey Graham in particular, if you want to know, 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.720 when he can't defend what Donald Trump is doing, he 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:12.560 goes radio silent, completely radio silent. He has sort of 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.080 two versions of it. Sometimes what he does is he 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.959 doesn't defend the actions, but he defends the goals. But 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.080 this is a guy who was in the Jaguar in 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:24.640 the military. I think actually does care about the rule 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:29.040 of law, and I think is probably I would like 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.760 to think. I don't know if he's personally outraged by 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.560 how this administration is dealing with the rule of law, 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.439 but it's clear he's not supportive of it because it 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.800 is crickets. You don't see him anywhere. You don't see him. 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:47.639 This is a guy who knows his state has benefited 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:52.760 from a open and free market economy with a company 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.520 like BMW and Mercedes both I believe, with plants in 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:59.960 South Carolina. And here's a guy who actually seems to 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:04.240 care about the rule of law, and clearly this administration 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.760 right now doesn't care if it's following the rule of law. 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:12.840 So you can see sometimes by the lack of positive 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.080 affirmation from some of these folks that they if they 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.399 can't defend it, they're staying silent because, as at Lisa 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:25.359 Markowski's admitted last week, speaking out comes with a threat 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:29.840 of retaliation, and that is something that many Republicans are 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:32.800 very very nervous about. All Right, I'm going to sneak 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.560 in a break when we come back. My conversation with 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:40.280 Ben Whittis says, we try to understand exactly if there 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.320 is any actual legal strategy behind what the executive branch 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:47.639 is up to, or if this is all lawsuits that 0:18:47.680 --> 0:19:00.520 are designed for maximum political advantage and or pain. And 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.600 joining me now is the editor in chief of law Fair, 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:07.840 which is a publication that's devoted to legal issues having 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:11.000 to do with with national security. But these days, the 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:13.959 definition at least what the White House uses for national 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:17.399 security keeps broadening, which means in many ways, I'm going 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:19.199 to be counting on Ben Whittiss here to be our 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:24.280 tour guide in understanding, frankly, all of the legal fights 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:27.920 that the Trump administration has decided to take on, whether 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:32.240 it's we'll concentrate for first and foremost on the immigration case, 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.240 but I'm hoping to tap into Ben's nimble legal mind 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.399 on all sorts of things, including what's going on with 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.960 Harvard and those form Ben. What is good to see you, sir, 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:45.000 Great to see you. 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:45.879 It's been a while. 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:49.239 It has been a while back when both you and 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:54.720 I took financial rewards from NBC. It might be one 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:59.520 way to put it, but one thing you can't be 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:04.239 upset is that Donald Trump is giving Lawfair plenty of 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:09.879 material to I mean, I guess he's made people paying 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.440 attention to the law great again. 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.760 Not to mention that he keeps using our name. You know, 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:21.159 when we named the site lawfair, which was back in 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:28.000 twenty ten, this was a very specialized term. And now 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:32.560 Donald Trump tweets about lawfair. He you know, he. 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:38.400 Completely decided the word means yes. Is that what it is? Yeah? 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.840 Yeah, litigation against him, or it's any litigation he doesn't like, 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:44.800 is lawfair, And so he keeps you know, it's like 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.160 somebody tweets out Ben Wittis all the time, and it's 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:50.720 it's it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.080 Well, congratulations, that's nice. Thank you, that's nice. 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:55.840 We look at the bright side. 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:58.439 You have to. So I was preparing for this, and 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:02.160 I was looking at, you know, this handy dandy list 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:04.879 of rules that I thought we all abided by. It 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:07.680 was called the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, this crazy thing. 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:12.600 And I have him violating the first, the fourth, the fifth, 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:14.840 the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, and the ninth amendments. 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.160 I can't find evidence as violated the second and third, 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:21.080 and we'll see on the state front right now. 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:22.800 Yeah, what about the tenth. 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:24.440 Well, that's what I mean. I'm not going to sit 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:26.040 here and say I don't I don't have a good 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:28.640 I don't have an easy case to say he's violated 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.280 the tenth yet, although I think what he's doing with 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:33.960 the Department of Education arguably might be doing that. But 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:37.040 well that that might be a stretch. But when you 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:42.440 just look at this one case, I am I crazy 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:46.200 to say that he's that in some ways the Trump 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:50.000 Justice Department and what the immigrant I mean, we may 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:52.560 say a violation of the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:55.200 and ninth. I mean these are the amendments that are 0:21:55.240 --> 0:22:02.399 there too, essentially put some boundaries on what the state 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:06.200 can do to somebody that they think might be a criminal. 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:11.720 Yeah, so, you would think that if the notion of 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:16.600 human liberty and rule in a society of ordered freedom 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:20.879 had any meaning at all, it would be that when 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:30.880 you have been you're living here, your deportation case has 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:37.480 been adjudicated six years ago, and the immigration courts have 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:41.560 said you can't be deported to El Salvador. You would 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:44.359 think that if the notion had any meaning at all, 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:49.880 it would mean that the government can't arrest you apropos 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:54.480 of nothing, with no criminal allegation that you did anything wrong, 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:59.320 stick you on a plane, and send you to a 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:03.640 kind of suit max prison in the one country that 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:08.720 they are not allowed to deport you to, without anybody, 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:12.800 without a judge ever hearing about it. And your wife 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:16.880 only finds out about it because the head of DHF 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:21.440 DHS goeses and poses in front of your jail cell 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:25.199 for a picture. You would think that that's what it 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:31.080 would mean, But apparently not so it is. 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:36.840 Let's talk about the Supreme Court ruling here and the 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:41.520 word they chose to use. The administration does not believe 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:46.360 the Supreme Court has ordered them to have him returned 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:51.399 they believe that the Supreme Court simply says said, and 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:53.720 this is I'm sort of interpreting based on what you wrote. 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:57.720 You seem to think that their interpretation is, if El 0:23:57.840 --> 0:24:01.040 Salvador chooses to send him back, the United States has 0:24:01.080 --> 0:24:01.880 to accept him. 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:07.280 Correct, that is their interpretation. So the word that the 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:14.359 district judge used was facilitate. And the genuine complexity here is, 0:24:14.480 --> 0:24:15.760 let's say, and how. 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:17.240 Do you interpret the Supreme Court order. 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:20.160 Well, so the Supreme Court says, the district court said 0:24:20.440 --> 0:24:24.639