Speaker 1: Well, now it's time for our daily Bloomberg lobbrare for
Speaker 1: exploring legal issues in the news, and today Bloomberg lahst
Speaker 1: Greg Stewart discuss his President Trump's constitutional powers and taking
Speaker 1: military action against North Korea, and whether he would need
Speaker 1: congressional approval for a large scale attack overseas. She speaks
Speaker 1: with Elias Souman, a professor at the George Mason University
Speaker 1: and an Inscalia law school. Let me just start with
Speaker 1: the core constitutional question. Could Donald Trump legally order a
Speaker 1: preemptive attack on North Korea without getting congressional authorization? I
Speaker 1: think not? In west perhaps the North Korean attack was
Speaker 1: imminent because the Constitution makes it clear that only Congress
Speaker 1: has the power to authorize the initiation of a war. However,
Speaker 1: it's possible that despite its unconstitutionality, Trump could potentially get
Speaker 1: away with starting a war without congressional authorization because adhering
Speaker 1: to that constitutional principle has been spotty in recent years
Speaker 1: in footing under President Obama. Let's let's get into some
Speaker 1: of that history in a moment. If it were a
Speaker 1: smaller scale strike, is that something that that Trump could
Speaker 1: could do without going to Congress first? I think there's
Speaker 1: room for legitimate debate over that. Some people would argue,
Speaker 1: and I tend to agree with this, that there might
Speaker 1: be small scale military actions that fall short of a war,
Speaker 1: and then perhaps the president could undertake them on their own,
Speaker 1: maybe his strike on Syria a few months ago as
Speaker 1: an example of this. Others, however, argued that any attack
Speaker 1: kind of foreign power, even a very small one, qualifies
Speaker 1: as an act of war, and if it's done to
Speaker 1: start a conflict rather than in reaction to an enemy
Speaker 1: attack or two like, then uh, it's a war and
Speaker 1: Congress have to authorize it. One thing North Korea has
Speaker 1: threatened is this idea of launching missiles that would land
Speaker 1: near Guam. Would that be enough to allow the president
Speaker 1: to respond without having to get something some thursdation from Congress.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting case, as would almost steady legal principle,
Speaker 1: They're going to be borderline situations which may be hard
Speaker 1: to categorize. I would very tentatively say that if the
Speaker 1: strike on Guam looked like it was likely intended to
Speaker 1: actually hit Guam, then that's an act of war and
Speaker 1: Trump currently could respond to any president could respond if,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, it seems pretty clear that all
Speaker 1: North Korea is doing is landing missiles in international waters.
Speaker 1: That's provocative and I advised act, but in itself wouldn't
Speaker 1: count as a war because all sorts of governments have
Speaker 1: war games and military exercises and international waters all the time.
Speaker 1: That's I yes, so Men, a professor at the George
Speaker 1: Mason University ended in Scalia Law School, speaking with Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law hose Greg Store. You can listen to Bloomberg Law
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