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Speaker 1: Today is June twenty first, twenty twenty three, and American
Speaker 1: democracy remains in crisis. The evidence of this is from
Speaker 1: today's lead of The New York Times. Let me read
Speaker 1: from it. Donald J. Trump has promised that if he
Speaker 1: wins back to presidency, he will appoint a special prosecutor
Speaker 1: to quote go after end quote President Biden and his family.
Speaker 1: But He's not the only Republican running for president who
Speaker 1: appears to be abandoning long established norms in Washington presidents
Speaker 1: keeping their hands out of specific Justice Department investigations and
Speaker 1: prosecut custance. Mister Trump, who leads the GOP field by
Speaker 1: around thirty percentage points in national public polls, yields such
Speaker 1: powerful influence that only a few of his Republican rivals
Speaker 1: are willing to clearly say presidents should not interfere in
Speaker 1: such Justice Department decisions. After mister Trump's vow to direct
Speaker 1: the Justice Department to appoint a quote real end quote
Speaker 1: prosecutor to investigate the bidence. The New York Times asked
Speaker 1: each of his Republican rivals questions aimed at laying out
Speaker 1: what limits, if any, they believed presidents must or should
Speaker 1: respect when it comes to White House interference with federal
Speaker 1: law enforcement decisions. The incredible aspect about the New York
Speaker 1: Times question, of course, is that it's taken until twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three for them to ask anybody in the world
Speaker 1: Publican party the question, because the assault against the rule
Speaker 1: of law has been ongoing for seven years. But at
Speaker 1: any rate, the New York Times has finally asked the question.
Speaker 1: Better late than never, As they say, let's continue reading
Speaker 1: though another remarkable paragraph that highlights the extremism that has
Speaker 1: taken route fully in the Republican Party. According to The
Speaker 1: New York Times, the Republican candidates quote responses reveal a
Speaker 1: party that has turned so hard against federal law enforcement
Speaker 1: that it is no longer widely considered good politics To
Speaker 1: clearly answer in the negative a question that was once uncontroversial.
Speaker 1: Do you believe presidents should get involved in the investigations
Speaker 1: and prosecutions of individuals? End quote at hand is a
Speaker 1: fundamental question It is a question about liberty, freedom, the
Speaker 1: rule of law, political power its limits, and the safety
Speaker 1: of every American to be safe in their homes, free
Speaker 1: from the knock on the door in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night. That is the question at hand. Each American
Speaker 1: has a birthright of freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of
Speaker 1: faith and religion, freedom of conscience, the freedom to pursue
Speaker 1: happiness and to become whatever it is they wish to be.
Speaker 1: That is what freedom is. Each American has a right
Speaker 1: to defy authority, to protest injustice, to raise their voices
Speaker 1: in dissent, to say no without fear of consequence of
Speaker 1: reprisal from the government in the form of elected officials
Speaker 1: abusing their power. This is a free country. America is
Speaker 1: not a dictatorship. In America, we do not imprison our
Speaker 1: political opponents on a whim. We do not say that
Speaker 1: because I lost an election, I will seek revenge and
Speaker 1: when I resume power, I will imprison those who opposed me.
Speaker 1: This is not American. This is as un American a
Speaker 1: sentiment as there could conceivably be. This is a reckless
Speaker 1: abandonment of the precepts, the ideas, and ideals of the
Speaker 1: American Revolution. The Constitution in two hundred years of jurisprudence
Speaker 1: that has evolved to make the United States of America
Speaker 1: a global standard for the rule of law, for the
Speaker 1: application of justice blindly on the facts, not on the
Speaker 1: basis of fantasy, of politics, of false accusation. Does anybody
Speaker 1: have any doubt whatsoever that Donald Trump would not make
Speaker 1: a false accusation against a political enemy to imprison them.
Speaker 1: How many would he imprison? How many journalists would be
Speaker 1: locked up? How many opponents? How many activists would it be,
Speaker 1: by the hundreds, by the thousands. It's time we stop
Speaker 1: and think about these issues, to think about them both
Speaker 1: abstractly and concretely. The issue is one of restraint. And
Speaker 1: this is the concept that The New York Times doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to understand at a foundational and conceptual level about
Speaker 1: how the American government is organized. Take this remarkable paragraph
Speaker 1: from their story. Mister Trump's closest rival, Governor Ron DeSantis
Speaker 1: of Florida, has flatly said he does not believe the
Speaker 1: Justice Department is independent from the White House as a
Speaker 1: matter of law, while leaving it ambiguous where he stands
Speaker 1: on the issues of presidents get involved in investigation decisions.
Speaker 1: The New York Times may be unclear on this, but
Speaker 1: Governor DeSantis is one hundred percent correct, and I won't
Speaker 1: be saying that very often here. The Justice Department is
Speaker 1: a part of the executive branch, and as such, the
Speaker 1: President does have authority over the Justice Department. There should
Speaker 1: be no lack of clarity over that question. The Attorney General,
Speaker 1: like the FBI Director, serves at the pleasure of the
Speaker 1: President of the United States and with the advice and
Speaker 1: consent of the United States Senate. Like every federal official,
Speaker 1: including the President, these people are invested with temporary and
Speaker 1: limited powers under a Constitution of the United States that
Speaker 1: is the oldest and most enduring in the world. The
Speaker 1: issue is not authority. The issue is restraint. The American
Speaker 1: system of government, like all democracy, requires the practice of restraint.
Speaker 1: There is no acceptable argument in a democracy that grants
Speaker 1: the head of state, the commander in chief, the arbitrary
Speaker 1: power to order investigations of those that displease him, whether
Speaker 1: the displeasure be something that they set in a newspaper
Speaker 1: column or wrote, or set on television, or god forbid,
Speaker 1: had the temerity even to challenge the most powerful person
Speaker 1: in the world politically, for his job for his office.
Speaker 1: For seven long years from the moment that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: descended the escalator into the batwels of Trump Tower and
Speaker 1: began his crusade against American democracy, the American press has
Speaker 1: largely foregone asking questions about his beliefs in democracy in
Speaker 1: the government. There have been few questions that test his
Speaker 1: understanding of it conceptually foundationally. The simple truth is Donald
Speaker 1: Trump has no clue about how the American system is organized,
Speaker 1: and judging by the paragraph written by five New York
Speaker 1: Times journalists, some of them don't either. The issue at
Speaker 1: hand is whether the use of law enforcement will be
Speaker 1: politically weaponized by politicians for their self advantage, their self interest.
Speaker 1: What we're talking about here is whether to officially license
Speaker 1: corruption and the police apparatus of the state for the
Speaker 1: purpose of politics. The second that happens, we have a
Speaker 1: secret police in the United States, and democracy will be
Speaker 1: strangled murdered by a secret police. A country where there
Speaker 1: are leaders, whether it be a president, a governor, a
Speaker 1: crooked mayor a sheriff, can make their own law and
Speaker 1: apply it and target their enemies is not a free country.
Speaker 1: It's a dictatorship. This is what Americans must guard against.
Speaker 1: This is what Americans must stand against. And this speaks
Speaker 1: to the deep, deep, deep, deep, deep deep rot inside
Speaker 1: the Maga Republican Party. Every single person running for president
Speaker 1: knows how wrong this is, how sick and twisted this
Speaker 1: is with regard to the entire American way of life,
Speaker 1: which is dependent on the concept of an evenly applied
Speaker 1: rule of law, with no citizen above it and no
Speaker 1: citizen below. This is a radical departure from the American experiment,
Speaker 1: from the foundational ideas that Martin Luther King, that Frederick Douglass,
Speaker 1: that Abraham Lincoln, that John Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt and a
Speaker 1: thousand other patriots stood for, some martyring themselves, some laying
Speaker 1: down their lives, some dedicating their lives for the preservation
Speaker 1: of a system that keeps us safe from the jackboot
Speaker 1: of government authority into talitarianism. That's what this story in
Speaker 1: the New York Times is about. One of America's two
Speaker 1: major political parties has left the defense of democracy to
Speaker 1: the other political party. They have turned against it. The
Speaker 1: aphrodisiac of power, the desire of one man, and the
Speaker 1: cowardice of many many others have created one of the
Speaker 1: great threats America faces, and there is no institution coming
Speaker 1: to the rescue. It is up to the American people
Speaker 1: to defend the American way of life. Millions of Americans
Speaker 1: have sacrificed so much to pass on to us a
Speaker 1: chance to make our country more perfect, more just, and
Speaker 1: more free. They did not finish that job. They left
Speaker 1: it to us. We will not finish that job. We
Speaker 1: will hand it all, but we must not allow well
Speaker 1: we hand off to become so corrupted that a wanna
Speaker 1: be dictator like Donald Trump can order the arrest, detention,
Speaker 1: and imprisonment of anyone he wishes just because he doesn't
Speaker 1: like what they say, or think or believe. That is
Speaker 1: as un American a thought, a concept as there could
Speaker 1: ever be