Speaker 1: Joining me now to discuss the executive orders and what
Speaker 1: it all means for America is CNN legal analyst Ellie Honig.
Speaker 2: Ellie, how are you, buddy? How's everything going? Man?
Speaker 3: Great to see if Stephen A. We are in a
Speaker 3: By the way, world's record has just been set. Donald
Speaker 3: Trump just set the record for most executive orders ever
Speaker 3: issued on inauguration day, twenty six of them. So I
Speaker 3: know we're not going to go through all twenty six,
Speaker 3: but no president has ever come in on day one
Speaker 3: and issue twenty six orders before. So happy to be
Speaker 3: here and help you walk through which ones are most important.
Speaker 1: First day of his term in office twenty six executive orders.
Speaker 1: First of all, I think when you think about that,
Speaker 1: what alarms you most about that? What should alarm Americans
Speaker 1: most about such executive power as being exercise so early?
Speaker 3: Well, I think, broadly speaking, just the blunt exercise of
Speaker 3: executive force like that. I mean, look, obviously the president
Speaker 3: has a lot of power, but these eos executive orders
Speaker 3: are always controversial. I mean Barack Obama came under a
Speaker 3: lot of heat and criticism because he issued what turned
Speaker 3: out to be far less than Donald Trump. But people
Speaker 3: at the time said, while he's trying to become a king,
Speaker 3: he's trying to just waive his magic scepter and make
Speaker 3: things happen. And now Donald Trump is doing that. And
Speaker 3: then some now executive orders, as we'll discussed, they're not
Speaker 3: necessarily bad or evil, and they have to go through
Speaker 3: a legal process. In fact, we're already seeing court cases
Speaker 3: on some. But what's clear to me is Donald Trump
Speaker 3: is taking office and as promised, I guess, and true
Speaker 3: to form, right from day one, he is taking the
Speaker 3: position I'm the president, I'm going to do what I please.
Speaker 1: Let's get right into the wheeze of some of these order.
Speaker 1: To start with birthright citizenship, Trump wants to redefine birthright
Speaker 1: citizenship is defined by the fourteenth Amendment. The Trump order
Speaker 1: asserts that a child born in the United States is
Speaker 1: not a citizen if a the mother does not have
Speaker 1: legal immigration status or is in the country legally but
Speaker 1: not temporary but only temporarily, and b the father is
Speaker 1: not a US citizen or a lawful permanent resident. The
Speaker 1: order also forbiduous agency's form from issuing any document recognizing
Speaker 1: such a child as a citizen or accept any state
Speaker 1: document recognizing citizenship this order is already being challenged in
Speaker 1: federal court. As you pointed out, break this down for
Speaker 1: US Elie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, what Donald Trump is trying to do here
Speaker 3: really is reverse one hundred and fifty years of American law.
Speaker 3: Under the Fourteenth Amendment passed in eighteen sixty eight just
Speaker 3: after the Civil War ratified, it says that any person
Speaker 3: who is born or naturalized in the United States and
Speaker 3: subject to the jurisdiction of the United States is a citizen.
Speaker 3: And just to make sure it was clear, Congress passed
Speaker 3: the law saying the same thing, and the US Supreme
Speaker 3: Court had a case in eighteen ninety eight where they
Speaker 3: said the same thing. What Trump is trying to do
Speaker 3: here is sort of change and really tweak the definition
Speaker 3: so that it does not apply to somebody who's here
Speaker 3: I legally and has children here. But that's just contrary
Speaker 3: to what it says in the Constitution. And not surprisingly, Stephen,
Speaker 3: just yesterday a federal judge, so two days after Trump
Speaker 3: got sworn in, a federal judge said hang on and
Speaker 3: put this on what we called an injunction. He put
Speaker 3: it on hold. And a couple things about what happened
Speaker 3: in court yesterday one the judge tore into the government
Speaker 3: lawyers for Trump. He said something like, this is one
Speaker 3: of the most ridiculous legal motions I've ever seen, that
Speaker 3: you're trying to change what birthright citizenship means. The other
Speaker 3: thing is, now, as I'm telling you that, you're probably
Speaker 3: thinking it must be an Obama or a Biden appointee
Speaker 3: to the bench. So rego Ronald Reagan appointed judge exactly,
Speaker 3: and this guy had no patience for no credence to
Speaker 3: the argument Trump's lawyer was making it all.
Speaker 1: That's actually a reason to be hopeful, because you've got
Speaker 1: somebody that was appointed by Ronald Reagan who is disagreeing
Speaker 1: with such a thing that gives us an editor of
Speaker 1: minds as to what our country is supposed to be
Speaker 1: about in terms of being a nation of laws. Let's
Speaker 1: go to the whole DEI issue, diversity, equity and inclusion.
Speaker 1: Trump's executive order gives executive branch departments and agencies sixty
Speaker 1: days to eliminate diversity equity and inclusion programs, including.
Speaker 2: All chief Diversity officer jobs.
Speaker 1: It also terminated a sixty year old executive order setting
Speaker 1: anti discrimination requirements government agencies in contract is Meanwhile, a
Speaker 1: separate memo effectively put all federal DEI offices on immediate leave,
Speaker 1: pending their elimination. What do you make of.
Speaker 2: This, Ellie?
Speaker 3: You know, Stephen, I'm not sure there's much that can
Speaker 3: be done about this in the courts, because here's the
Speaker 3: thing with executive orders. They apply to the executive branch
Speaker 3: of the federal government. So the President cannot issue an
Speaker 3: executive order that tells Congress what's to do, tells the
Speaker 3: courts what to do, or really even tells the states
Speaker 3: what to do, although the FEDS can sort of control
Speaker 3: federal funding based on what the states do. But this
Speaker 3: to me is, you know, whether you agree or disagree
Speaker 3: with the substance of it, what an executive order legally
Speaker 3: can do, which is say, okay, our new policy within
Speaker 3: the federal executive branch. That's all the agencies, White House,
Speaker 3: doj you know, EPA on down the line, we are
Speaker 3: going to have DEI initiatives. We're not going to have
Speaker 3: DEI initiatives. So I don't know that there's much chance
Speaker 3: of offending that in court. But I will say, and
Speaker 3: you mentioned this, if the executive orders cross the line
Speaker 3: and start to discriminate against forbidden areas race, gender, sex,
Speaker 3: that kind of thing. Then we can get into court challenges.
Speaker 3: But just saying we're gonna get rid of DEI officials,
Speaker 3: I'm sure someone will challenge it in court, and without
Speaker 3: getting into whether it's good or bad to have these things,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that there's gonna be a way to
Speaker 3: overcome that. EO.
Speaker 1: My issue with this eliot is that how they're trying
Speaker 1: to define DEI. They're trying to define DEI programs as
Speaker 1: basically handouts, you know, and essentially we want to do
Speaker 1: away with all of that. And I'm like, they don't
Speaker 1: pay any attention to why it came into existence to
Speaker 1: begin with. I use examples like the Rooney rule in
Speaker 1: a national football right go, even.
Speaker 2: Affirmative action from the sixties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can lament its existence, but what provoked its existence?
Speaker 1: To me, that's never ever been discussed. Okay, that's where
Speaker 1: I'm at with it. Let me go on to the
Speaker 1: subject to term limits, because I know I couldn't wait
Speaker 1: to ask you about this one. One of President Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's top congressional allies, Tennessee Representative.
Speaker 2: Andy Ogill's, introduced.
Speaker 1: A resolution last night that would allow the commander in
Speaker 1: chief of third term. What the hell is going on here, Ellie.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know that until you told me that.
Speaker 3: I guess you could see in my reaction. Yeah, look,
Speaker 3: this is a pipe dream, this is not There is
Speaker 3: a way this could happen. It's called amending the US Constitution.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: The constitution limits presidents to two terms. If we are
Speaker 3: going to amend the constitution, I guess you can add
Speaker 3: a third term. But the process to amend the constitution, Stephen,
Speaker 3: is almost impossible. We last did it, by the way,
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety three, I think it's been a long time.
Speaker 3: You would need to get two thirds of the House
Speaker 3: of Representatives, two thirds of the Senate, and then three
Speaker 3: quarters of the state so thirty eight of the fifty
Speaker 3: states would then have to approve it. So this thing
Speaker 3: is doa dead on arrival, no chance. But Steven, to
Speaker 3: your prior point, also understand a lot of what's happening
Speaker 3: with these EO executive orders, with these congressional movements. They're politics.
Speaker 3: I mean, some of these are symbolics. Some of them
Speaker 3: are specifically symbolic. We're going to change the names of
Speaker 3: what we call mountains or Gulfs or whatever, but even
Speaker 3: something like birthright, Saidizenship. I don't believe that Donald Trump
Speaker 3: believes he's going to win that. I don't know that
Speaker 3: he cares though. I think he's trying to make a point.
Speaker 3: Ear have the fight and say, you know, look, I
Speaker 3: went I wanted to do this for you, but the
Speaker 3: courts struck me down. Stupid being courts. Yeah, so this
Speaker 3: third third term is I'm not going to bet on
Speaker 3: that happening. Well.
Speaker 1: See, the thing that bugs me out about at Elie
Speaker 1: is this. These are conservatives that are making this proposal.
Speaker 1: Who is dogged more than anybody else about.
Speaker 2: Us living according to the tenets of the Constitution. Wouldn't
Speaker 2: that be them?
Speaker 1: But our constitution clearly calls for a two term limit.
Speaker 1: And nevertheless, here's a Republican representative trying to propose such
Speaker 1: a thing, which to me is just it just reeks
Speaker 1: of hypocrisy. Last one here would be the JFK to
Speaker 1: RFK and the MLK files.
Speaker 2: Trump signed an.
Speaker 1: Executive order that call for the release of all classified
Speaker 1: documents related to the assassinations of John F.
Speaker 2: Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Junior.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the family of MLK offered their response to President
Speaker 1: Trump's decision to release the files related to the assassination
Speaker 1: of the Civil Rights Icon nearly sixty years ago, and
Speaker 1: here is a quote from the family. Today, our family
Speaker 1: has learned that President Trump has ordered the classification of
Speaker 1: the remaining records pertaining to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy,
Speaker 1: his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and our father, Reverend Doctor
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Junior. For us, the assassination of our
Speaker 1: fathers a deeply personal laws that we have endured over.
Speaker 2: The last fifty six years.
Speaker 1: We hope to be provided the opportunity to review the
Speaker 1: files as a family prior to its public release. Ellie,
Speaker 1: first of all, what do you make of this particular
Speaker 1: executive order calling for the release of these classified documents
Speaker 1: and what's the reasoning behind it?
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, legally there's nothing that can be
Speaker 3: done to stop that. But I totally agree with you.
Speaker 3: If you're going to do this a you have to
Speaker 3: start with the families. You have to respect the wishes
Speaker 3: of the people who were murdered. I mean, their children
Speaker 3: and grandchildren are still with us. Second of all, you
Speaker 3: at least have to honor the request to let them
Speaker 3: see the files first. What's behind it? I mean, this
Speaker 3: is just something that I think Trump is doing, you know,
Speaker 3: out of populist instinct. People want to see it. People
Speaker 3: are going to see it. I don't think any of
Speaker 3: these files, by the way, are going to have some
Speaker 3: sort of no pun intended smoking gun that's going to
Speaker 3: change our view of what happened. But look to me,
Speaker 3: you know, this is one of those things that's within
Speaker 3: the very very broad powers of the presidency. Heck knows,
Speaker 3: I would never do this. I would never want to
Speaker 3: do anything to upset the surviving families of an assassination.
Speaker 3: But you know, look, the guy just won the election.
Speaker 3: This is within his purview.
Speaker 2: I will say this, though.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of noise and then you hear that
Speaker 1: there's something he wanted to do during his first term,
Speaker 1: but both the CIA and the FBI both discouraged him
Speaker 1: or tried to discourage him from doing so. So I'm
Speaker 1: wondering what role does that play in his thinking. Could
Speaker 1: it expose something about the CIA, could it expose something
Speaker 1: about the FBI? And is that what President Donald Trump
Speaker 1: wants in light of what he's had to deal with
Speaker 1: from his first term and since he's departed from office
Speaker 1: the last four year. When it came to the the agencies,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering what role that may have played in motivating
Speaker 1: him to want to do this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be.
Speaker 3: Look, the CIA and the FBI can certainly weigh in
Speaker 3: with the president say hey, you're you know, sir, we
Speaker 3: do not recommend this, but it ultimately it's Trump's choice.
Speaker 3: But you're right, Steven. I mean Donald Trump has adopted
Speaker 3: a very anti law enforcement posture throughout his campaign, but
Speaker 3: especially you know, the last several months. And he comes
Speaker 3: into office, and what's the first thing he does. He
Speaker 3: pardons all all of the January sixth rioters. There was
Speaker 3: it seemed like he was maybe going to pardon the
Speaker 3: non violent people, comes in and pardons everyone with one
Speaker 3: fell swoop, even though JD. Vance had said a couple
Speaker 3: of days before obviously he said, quote, you shouldn't pardon
Speaker 3: the violent people. But yeah, look, there may It wouldn't
Speaker 3: surprise me at all if there's some sort of anti
Speaker 3: law enforcement, anti what he would call the deep state
Speaker 3: type sentiment behind this move.
Speaker 1: Let me transition to sports before I let you get
Speaker 1: on out of here because I know I'm told you
Speaker 1: are a Philadelphia Eagles fan for the National Football League?
Speaker 2: First of all, is that true? And secondly, do you
Speaker 2: have one of this weekend?
Speaker 3: Very true? I when I was a kid, I grew
Speaker 3: up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, South Jersey, and I
Speaker 3: was all about the Phillies. I wasn't really I found
Speaker 3: the Eagles boring until you're gonna know what this is,
Speaker 3: until what happens in the mid eighties that makes everyone go,
Speaker 3: holy crap, this is exciting.
Speaker 1: What did the Eagles do well? They went to the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl and lost to the early eighties or a
Speaker 1: night after eight coaching him?
Speaker 2: After that?
Speaker 3: Who was the guy? Who was the guy who would
Speaker 3: have captured a ten year old's attention?
Speaker 2: Like, holy r Cunningham, you got it.
Speaker 3: When they drafted Randall Cunningham, all of a sudden, I
Speaker 3: was in. I mean I was riveted by nobody was
Speaker 3: doing the things you were. I mean you were right,
Speaker 3: Nobody was doing the things this guy was doing. He
Speaker 3: was so spectacular that Monday night game against the Giants
Speaker 3: where they knocked him down, he still threw the TV.
Speaker 3: So I've been all in on the Eagles ever since then,
Speaker 3: like any good Philly fan, I'm terrified beyond reason. So
Speaker 3: I guess I'm I'm you know, I know they're favored
Speaker 3: by six points, six and a half points whatever. I
Speaker 3: said that rationally, but but our in our nature, we
Speaker 3: have to be pessimistic and nervous until it's over.
Speaker 2: Well, you should be worried.
Speaker 1: That's what it'd be a wise day for your brother,
Speaker 1: Jade and Daniels is no joke.
Speaker 2: He's no joke.
Speaker 1: I'm still picking the Eagles to win myself, and I'll
Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit later, but I'm telling
Speaker 1: you right now, this brother can make a difference, make
Speaker 1: no mistake about it. Ellie Honak Legal Analysts for seeing
Speaker 1: that right here on the Stephen the eatex MIC sure
Speaker 1: appreciate you, buddy. Thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 1: and taking time out of your business schedule.
Speaker 2: All appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Always great to be with you. Thanks