02-07-25 Interview - Constitutional Scholar John Yoo - Which of Trump's Executive Orders Will Stand?
February 7, 2025 • 17 mins
WHICH OF TRUMP'S EXECUTIVE ORDERS WILL STAND? Pretty much everything that Trump is doing right now is going to be challenged in court. Though the President clearly has the right to issue Executive Orders, is he addressing things that aren't in his chain of command? I've got Constitutional scholar John Yoo on today to talk about it.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Over the last eighteen days, President Donald Trump has issued
a flurry of executive orders and lots of questions being
bandied about and will be decided by the courts on
whether or not these executive orders will be allowed to stand.
And joining me now the law professor from UC Berkeley
and also visiting visiting fellow John You with the New
(00:22):
School of Civic Leadership at the University of Texas in Austin.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
John, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
First of all, thanks, Amandy, it's great to be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I want to start with kind of a macro question
about this, and I've said this often on the show.
I don't like executive order leading leadership because just as
easily as they are written, they can be overturned by
the next president and there's no consistency there. But let's
talk about the overall constitutionality of what Donald Trump is
doing via these executive orders. How much power does the
(00:53):
president actually have here?
Speaker 3 (00:57):
The presidents have a lot of authority under executive orders.
I think there's a big difference between for example, President
Obama and President Biden did with their executive orders, which
I thought a number of them went on too far,
like the DACUP program or not collecting student loans. And
what President Trump is doing here, what President Trump is
doing primarily is about how you run the government, how
(01:18):
you run the executive branch. It's almost like Donald Trump
is the head human relations officer of the federal government.
And so the law, the very controversial orders that people
are attacking now are things like we're not going to
have DEI initiatives within the federal government anymore, or we're
not going to allow political persecution of our political enemies
(01:40):
using the Justice Department or the FBI. These are about
restraining the government, about keeping it within bounds and making
sure it runs consistently with the way President Trump, you know,
his agenda and the way he campaigned for office. Then
there's another kind of executive order which I think Trump
is using again causing a lot of controversy, which is
(02:01):
Congress gives a president a lot of power to send regulate,
issue regulations, to choose cases to prosecute, and so on,
and he's announcing early on how he wants to use
those powers that Congresses have given presidents for decades and decades. So,
for example, when President Trump issues an executive order saying
I'm going to prioritize the Justice Apartment and the FBI
(02:24):
on immigration, on illegal aliens and getting felons out of
the country. He is allowed to do that just the
same way you know, President Obama and President Bides it.
I'm not going to prioritize, you know, using federal law
enforcement to handle illegal aliens. That's right. Those are controversial,
but the president has the constitutional power to do it.
(02:47):
What are your.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Thoughts on ruling via executive order? I mean, this is
not sustainable in any real way. But does this embolden
Congress or empower them in some way to pursue legislation
to make these things more permanent in your view?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
So some of some parts of it, like a lot
of what Trump is doing, are just inherent in there
being a president with an executive branch, and you have
to decide how the executive branch is gonna run. You're
gonna have to decide what you want, right, what you
want federal employees to do, how you want to like again,
how you want human hr to work within the federal garment.
That's that's just part of having an executive branch. Now,
(03:29):
what Congress can do, and this is actually goes well
beyond executive orders. What Congress has to do is take
more responsibility for itself, right and issue orders. So here's
the common one is why does the president like Biden
get to go and say, I'm going to make half
of Alaska National Park no drilling for oil in Alaska? Right?
That's because Congress gave the power to the president to
(03:52):
create national monuments. But a president can also take it away.
President Trump can say no, I de memorializing that my
But you're right. The real answer should be Congress should
pass a law and it should choose what national monuments
we're going to have or not, where we're going to
have drilling for oil or not. But the problem is
Congress doesn't want to take responsibility for hard choices yes,
(04:14):
and so instead they just say, we're going to tell
the president, here's all the power you need to make
clean air or clean water. You decided what pollution should be,
you decide whether we should have electric cars. That's a
real problem, but that's Congress has to do it. Presidents
can't make Congress do their job in a way, and
Congress has this political incentive say keep voting for me,
(04:36):
and I'm going to give all this power to the
president and blame him if you don't like it. I
didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I find it ironic, And I said this to a
friend of mine who happens to be to the left
of center a couple days ago. I think one of
the most interesting things that may come out of the
second Trump presidency is that Congress might begin to craw
back their power, especially if the Democrats take over any
branches of government.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
In the next election cycle.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
But it would be ironic if having Trump be a
president who's acted so boldly in this way ended up
with a reallocation of those powers in a more proper way.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
In my opinion, I'm still mad.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That Congress gave the power to declare war essentially to
the president back in the Bush administration. I'm still mad
about that. So we've seen this kind of creep for
decades now for the same reason that you just said. So,
were there any executive orders that stuck out to you
as being perhaps less likely to withstand a court challenge.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I just come in on what you said. There is
a difference between the way progressives and conservatives I think
view government and I think what we have now. The
things you don't like about these executive orders and regulations.
That is progressive government. Woodrow Wilson came up with this,
and generally progressive president's Democrats have expanded this model, which
is Congress should give all its power to the agencies,
(05:58):
and the agencies should be filled with scientists who are
going to come up with the best rules, and we
don't want politicians anywhere near them. Doctor Fauci is like
the ultimate you know, this is the poster child for
this model of governing. Conservatives generally want to restore the
original constitution, which is you vote for people in Congress.
They should make the policies the choices, and then the
(06:18):
president just carries them out. So in terms of your
more immediate question, what issues are going to have run
into trouble in the courts. So one thing is another
thing the president is allowed to do is he's allowed
to have a different view of the Constitution and the
courts are Congress. He's allowed to say, I want to
get the Supreme Court to review, to reconsider earlier cases,
(06:40):
and so the only way you can do that is
by taking the different position than the Supreme Court. So,
for example, I think the one he's going to run
into the most trouble is birthright citizenship. I think you know,
President Trump has said that illegal the children of illegal
aliens born in the United States are not going to
be not automatically citizens. The Supreme Court, there's a precedent
(07:03):
called wing Wan kim Ark from the late nineteenth century
that says, no, the Fourteenth Amendment says, if you're born
inside the United States, you're automatically a citizen. President Trump
is certainly allowed to say I want this room court
to reconsider that and decide whether they were wrong, and
so to cause that case to get up to Supreme Court.
(07:23):
He could say I'm going to order the government to
give not give passports to the children of the legal aliens.
He is certainly allowed to do that. And look, if
he said he was going to do this on the
Campaigntro people voted for him. He has democratic support to
try to get the Supreme Court to change his mind.
I don't think the Supreme Court, I don't think Chief
(07:44):
Justice Roberts and the Marine Court is going to vote
for a radical change in that. But other ones, I
think Trump's going to win on that. He's getting attacked
for right now. So for example, ending DEI, ending race
based affirmative action. That's actually quite in keeping with the
way the Supreme Court what's been going right just recording
the Harvard case that colleges shouldn't use race when they
make admissions decisions. I think Trump is going to win
(08:07):
on DEI, and he could do more. He could also say.
I think he's going to issue another executive order soon
that says, and anyone who receives money from the federal government,
anybody who's the contractor for the federal government, you can't
use race either, and skin color either. And I think
the courts will agree with him in the end. That's
not the law right now, and so Trump has to
(08:27):
keep pushing on it, and he's using executive orders to
do it.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
So I want to go back to the case that
you mentioned, because I was somewhat familiar with the case,
had never read the opinion, and the question I asked
you off the air that I think other listeners who
may be aware of that case as well is weren't
those people in the country legally? So it's mostly, as
you shared with me off the air, that the whole
interpretation of the concept of legal versus illegal immigration didn't
(08:54):
even exist when that case was hurt.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Yeah, this is the person there, wankim Ark. He's born
in the United States to two Chinese parents who are
not American citizens. There's no general federal immigration law in
existence at this time, so they didn't really even have
this concept of illegal and legal aliens. Instead, there had
been a deal with China, and so we passed something
(09:19):
called the Chinese Exclusion Act, which actually sought to bring
immigration to China from China to US to close to zero.
But it said the people who are here now they
can stay. So the court, when it decides wonkim Ark,
it doesn't actually care about the legal status or not
of his parents. They just say the fourteenth Amendment says,
(09:40):
you're born in the territory of the United States, you're
a citizen automatically. And so that's why, you know, President
Trump can say I disagree, I think your parents should
be citizens. That's why I'm predicting. I don't think he's
going to win on that, because this Wan kim Ark
case has been around, you know, for about one hundred
and forty years now, one hundred thirty years, and I
don't see this Supreme Court changing its mind. But I
(10:02):
could be wrong. I mean, maybe Trump will win, and
he's certainly titled to try to get the court to
reverse course.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I got a question from one of my listeners, and
it sort of goes to what you said before that
President Trump has his version of his interpretation of the Constitution.
Where's the other branches of government may have a different interpretation.
In that case, when you have different viewpoints, is the
Supreme Court the final arbiter or is there a way
(10:30):
how does that work if everybody has a different view
of an issue.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Constitutionally, This is a great question, and it goes back
to the founding. We've had this debate for the last
two hundred and thirty years and it's not settled. So
the Supreme Court today will say we have the power
to settle the constitutional questions. Supreme Courts in the past
(10:53):
have not said that, and presidents and Congresses in the
past have said, no, this record doesn't have the final say.
I get to interpret the Constitution as I wish when
I carry out my duties. And you know who most
prominently said that, Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln said the Supreme
Court got it wrong in dred Scott. I think free
(11:16):
blacks are citizens in the United States. I think I
am not returning people to slavery, and so I disagree
with dred Scott. He actually said, this is funny. He said,
you know it's called a Supreme Court opinion. That means
it's just their opinion. So he said, the only thing
I have to do is carry out who wins and loses.
But I as president, I will not obey dred Scott,
(11:37):
and I think he was right and he's not alone.
Thomas Jefferson said this, You know, Abraham Lincoln said, Andrew
Jackson fdr This. Presidents have always made the case that
Trump is making. Now I have the right to interpret
the Constitution too, and maybe ultimately it depends on the people,
because ultimately we have elections and then we can decide
whose interpretation of the Constitution we ultimately agree with with.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I would to ask your thoughts specifically on the offers
to federal employees.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
To basically take a buy out.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Right, you can quit by Thursday, and now it's been
extended to Monday as well, and you get paid till September.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
When we out in the general.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Public who work for large publicly traded corporations, who have
seen people be laid off ruthlessly and mercilessly, you know,
in the private sector.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Why is that.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Even that seems to me like the government should have
the right to make an offer of that sort because
it's a voluntary exchange.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
What is the what are the grounds there that this
is being challenged? And will will they hold up?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
You know, I have to say, Mandy, this is not
something I'm an expert on. Is you know, the internal
workings of you know, federal employment contracts. But I know
there is a lot of doubt about whether, you know,
whether the government is compared to a company which is
allowed to do what at once, right as long as
you just make a binding contract. It's not clear whether
(13:02):
the federal government can keep paying people who aren't working, right,
you know that. I mean you think about it as
a tax you know, you're a taxpayer. I'm a taxpayer. Uh,
you know, why should I give tax money the federal
government to turn around and pay people who aren't showing
up to work. So that's one problem. And then the
other problem is, you know, if they're really still federal
employees until you know, whatever time they stop, are they
(13:24):
allowed to go work for somebody else? Generally as a
tax payer, if I'm paying someone's salary, I don't want
them holding two jobs either, So no one. I just
don't think this has ever been worked out before because
this is a totally new proposal. But I know those
are going to be the legal issues. Is you know,
working for the government is different than working for their
private part. I wish the government worked like a private employer.
(13:46):
And this is Congress's fault because I think Congress has
placed so many rules and restrictions on what the government
can do that makes it hard for it to work
efficiently like a company would.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
And I think that's a big part of what we're
seeing now. And honestly, I think that President I call
it Trump two point oh. This administration is two point
zh so different than one point oh because he learned
how intractable government is, he learns how intractable Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Is.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And I actually think this is going to be a
lot of stuff that he is throwing against the wall,
knowing some of.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
It isn't going to stand.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
But at least we can begin to shake up the
kind of infrastructure that you're talking about right now that
is impossible to fire regardless of your job performance, and
all those horror stories that we've seen, and frankly, I
have friends who work for the federal government that I imagine
our outstanding human beings and employees as well. It'll kind
of be nice to separate maybe the week from the
chaff on that issue and see how all of that
(14:40):
gets sorted out. Because if the President is not successful
in sort of thinning the herd as they're trying to
do with usaid that organization, I'm concerned that there's not
going to be any way to have significant enough reforms
that can do something that will make a big enough
dent in our depth.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Is it spending.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Well? The way I would look at it is I
think President Trump has got to be right, and I
think if the polls I've seen show he has a
large sport American people, is can Congress force the government
to be inefficient, inefficient, and ineffective? It's like if President
Trump can say It's like as if Congress is saying, okay,
(15:23):
build a bridge from A to B and spend five
hundred million dollars on it. And what if Trump comes
back and says, we figured out how to build a
bridge for three hundred million dollars. Is does a president
have to burn up two hundred million dollars and waste it.
And I think that's fundamentally the constitutional conflict here is Congress,
of course wants the president to waste money because Congress
(15:45):
is trying to do favors for people and give out
more money than you need to. And so I think
that's what Trump's real argument is, and I think the
American people behind him is I want I'm not trying
to say I'm not going to spend the money. I'm
not going I'm trying to cancel laws. I'm trying to
I'm running the government like a business efficiently and effectively
to save money for the American people.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Last question, one of my texters asked, what about Doge?
What about the operation being headed up by Elon Musk
that people on the left are freaking out about right now,
because well, he's going after a lot of sacred cows.
How is that or is it not constitutional to do
what he's doing?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, this is a little bit complicated. I don't think
right now dog is violating any laws because I don't
think Elon Musk actually has the power to order anyone
to do anything. He's like an advisor, and you know,
there's nothing that says the president can't say, oh, I
want this person to give me advice on what to do.
(16:50):
And then that person, you know, whoever that is, maybe
it's the president himself, maybe it's a cabinet secretary. That
person then says, okay, close this office or has changed
this program. So Elon Musk is not shutting down Usaid.
Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State is shutting down Aid.
I looked up the law. The law says usaid reports
to the Secretary of State. Now, Mark Rubio is allowed
(17:13):
to listen to Elaon Musk. It just loves as long
he can listen to our radio show right now and
take our advice too. Nothing in the constitution prevents that.
So as long as Dose stays in that lane of
looking at numbers, giving advice to the president and the cabinet.
But they carry out the orders, they decide what to do,
then I don't think it's I don't think it has
(17:34):
a constitutional problem.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
He is a law professor at UC Berkeley. John Yu,
great information. Thank you so much, and I hope we
can do this again in the future.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Nice talking to you. I alway was happy to come back.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
All right, have a great day. That is John Yu
a fascinating stuff.
Over the last eighteen days, President Donald Trump has issued
a flurry of executive orders and lots of questions being
bandied about and will be decided by the courts on
whether or not these executive orders will be allowed to stand.
And joining me now the law professor from UC Berkeley
and also visiting visiting fellow John You with the New
(00:22):
School of Civic Leadership at the University of Texas in Austin.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
John, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
First of all, thanks, Amandy, it's great to be with you.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I want to start with kind of a macro question
about this, and I've said this often on the show.
I don't like executive order leading leadership because just as
easily as they are written, they can be overturned by
the next president and there's no consistency there. But let's
talk about the overall constitutionality of what Donald Trump is
doing via these executive orders. How much power does the
(00:53):
president actually have here?
Speaker 3 (00:57):
The presidents have a lot of authority under executive orders.
I think there's a big difference between for example, President
Obama and President Biden did with their executive orders, which
I thought a number of them went on too far,
like the DACUP program or not collecting student loans. And
what President Trump is doing here, what President Trump is
doing primarily is about how you run the government, how
(01:18):
you run the executive branch. It's almost like Donald Trump
is the head human relations officer of the federal government.
And so the law, the very controversial orders that people
are attacking now are things like we're not going to
have DEI initiatives within the federal government anymore, or we're
not going to allow political persecution of our political enemies
(01:40):
using the Justice Department or the FBI. These are about
restraining the government, about keeping it within bounds and making
sure it runs consistently with the way President Trump, you know,
his agenda and the way he campaigned for office. Then
there's another kind of executive order which I think Trump
is using again causing a lot of controversy, which is
(02:01):
Congress gives a president a lot of power to send regulate,
issue regulations, to choose cases to prosecute, and so on,
and he's announcing early on how he wants to use
those powers that Congresses have given presidents for decades and decades. So,
for example, when President Trump issues an executive order saying
I'm going to prioritize the Justice Apartment and the FBI
(02:24):
on immigration, on illegal aliens and getting felons out of
the country. He is allowed to do that just the
same way you know, President Obama and President Bides it.
I'm not going to prioritize, you know, using federal law
enforcement to handle illegal aliens. That's right. Those are controversial,
but the president has the constitutional power to do it.
(02:47):
What are your.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Thoughts on ruling via executive order? I mean, this is
not sustainable in any real way. But does this embolden
Congress or empower them in some way to pursue legislation
to make these things more permanent in your view?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
So some of some parts of it, like a lot
of what Trump is doing, are just inherent in there
being a president with an executive branch, and you have
to decide how the executive branch is gonna run. You're
gonna have to decide what you want, right, what you
want federal employees to do, how you want to like again,
how you want human hr to work within the federal garment.
That's that's just part of having an executive branch. Now,
(03:29):
what Congress can do, and this is actually goes well
beyond executive orders. What Congress has to do is take
more responsibility for itself, right and issue orders. So here's
the common one is why does the president like Biden
get to go and say, I'm going to make half
of Alaska National Park no drilling for oil in Alaska? Right?
That's because Congress gave the power to the president to
(03:52):
create national monuments. But a president can also take it away.
President Trump can say no, I de memorializing that my
But you're right. The real answer should be Congress should
pass a law and it should choose what national monuments
we're going to have or not, where we're going to
have drilling for oil or not. But the problem is
Congress doesn't want to take responsibility for hard choices yes,
(04:14):
and so instead they just say, we're going to tell
the president, here's all the power you need to make
clean air or clean water. You decided what pollution should be,
you decide whether we should have electric cars. That's a
real problem, but that's Congress has to do it. Presidents
can't make Congress do their job in a way, and
Congress has this political incentive say keep voting for me,
(04:36):
and I'm going to give all this power to the
president and blame him if you don't like it. I
didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I find it ironic, And I said this to a
friend of mine who happens to be to the left
of center a couple days ago. I think one of
the most interesting things that may come out of the
second Trump presidency is that Congress might begin to craw
back their power, especially if the Democrats take over any
branches of government.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
In the next election cycle.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
But it would be ironic if having Trump be a
president who's acted so boldly in this way ended up
with a reallocation of those powers in a more proper way.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
In my opinion, I'm still mad.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That Congress gave the power to declare war essentially to
the president back in the Bush administration. I'm still mad
about that. So we've seen this kind of creep for
decades now for the same reason that you just said. So,
were there any executive orders that stuck out to you
as being perhaps less likely to withstand a court challenge.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I just come in on what you said. There is
a difference between the way progressives and conservatives I think
view government and I think what we have now. The
things you don't like about these executive orders and regulations.
That is progressive government. Woodrow Wilson came up with this,
and generally progressive president's Democrats have expanded this model, which
is Congress should give all its power to the agencies,
(05:58):
and the agencies should be filled with scientists who are
going to come up with the best rules, and we
don't want politicians anywhere near them. Doctor Fauci is like
the ultimate you know, this is the poster child for
this model of governing. Conservatives generally want to restore the
original constitution, which is you vote for people in Congress.
They should make the policies the choices, and then the
(06:18):
president just carries them out. So in terms of your
more immediate question, what issues are going to have run
into trouble in the courts. So one thing is another
thing the president is allowed to do is he's allowed
to have a different view of the Constitution and the
courts are Congress. He's allowed to say, I want to
get the Supreme Court to review, to reconsider earlier cases,
(06:40):
and so the only way you can do that is
by taking the different position than the Supreme Court. So,
for example, I think the one he's going to run
into the most trouble is birthright citizenship. I think you know,
President Trump has said that illegal the children of illegal
aliens born in the United States are not going to
be not automatically citizens. The Supreme Court, there's a precedent
(07:03):
called wing Wan kim Ark from the late nineteenth century
that says, no, the Fourteenth Amendment says, if you're born
inside the United States, you're automatically a citizen. President Trump
is certainly allowed to say I want this room court
to reconsider that and decide whether they were wrong, and
so to cause that case to get up to Supreme Court.
(07:23):
He could say I'm going to order the government to
give not give passports to the children of the legal aliens.
He is certainly allowed to do that. And look, if
he said he was going to do this on the
Campaigntro people voted for him. He has democratic support to
try to get the Supreme Court to change his mind.
I don't think the Supreme Court, I don't think Chief
(07:44):
Justice Roberts and the Marine Court is going to vote
for a radical change in that. But other ones, I
think Trump's going to win on that. He's getting attacked
for right now. So for example, ending DEI, ending race
based affirmative action. That's actually quite in keeping with the
way the Supreme Court what's been going right just recording
the Harvard case that colleges shouldn't use race when they
make admissions decisions. I think Trump is going to win
(08:07):
on DEI, and he could do more. He could also say.
I think he's going to issue another executive order soon
that says, and anyone who receives money from the federal government,
anybody who's the contractor for the federal government, you can't
use race either, and skin color either. And I think
the courts will agree with him in the end. That's
not the law right now, and so Trump has to
(08:27):
keep pushing on it, and he's using executive orders to
do it.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
So I want to go back to the case that
you mentioned, because I was somewhat familiar with the case,
had never read the opinion, and the question I asked
you off the air that I think other listeners who
may be aware of that case as well is weren't
those people in the country legally? So it's mostly, as
you shared with me off the air, that the whole
interpretation of the concept of legal versus illegal immigration didn't
(08:54):
even exist when that case was hurt.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Yeah, this is the person there, wankim Ark. He's born
in the United States to two Chinese parents who are
not American citizens. There's no general federal immigration law in
existence at this time, so they didn't really even have
this concept of illegal and legal aliens. Instead, there had
been a deal with China, and so we passed something
(09:19):
called the Chinese Exclusion Act, which actually sought to bring
immigration to China from China to US to close to zero.
But it said the people who are here now they
can stay. So the court, when it decides wonkim Ark,
it doesn't actually care about the legal status or not
of his parents. They just say the fourteenth Amendment says,
(09:40):
you're born in the territory of the United States, you're
a citizen automatically. And so that's why, you know, President
Trump can say I disagree, I think your parents should
be citizens. That's why I'm predicting. I don't think he's
going to win on that, because this Wan kim Ark
case has been around, you know, for about one hundred
and forty years now, one hundred thirty years, and I
don't see this Supreme Court changing its mind. But I
(10:02):
could be wrong. I mean, maybe Trump will win, and
he's certainly titled to try to get the court to
reverse course.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I got a question from one of my listeners, and
it sort of goes to what you said before that
President Trump has his version of his interpretation of the Constitution.
Where's the other branches of government may have a different interpretation.
In that case, when you have different viewpoints, is the
Supreme Court the final arbiter or is there a way
(10:30):
how does that work if everybody has a different view
of an issue.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Constitutionally, This is a great question, and it goes back
to the founding. We've had this debate for the last
two hundred and thirty years and it's not settled. So
the Supreme Court today will say we have the power
to settle the constitutional questions. Supreme Courts in the past
(10:53):
have not said that, and presidents and Congresses in the
past have said, no, this record doesn't have the final say.
I get to interpret the Constitution as I wish when
I carry out my duties. And you know who most
prominently said that, Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln said the Supreme
Court got it wrong in dred Scott. I think free
(11:16):
blacks are citizens in the United States. I think I
am not returning people to slavery, and so I disagree
with dred Scott. He actually said, this is funny. He said,
you know it's called a Supreme Court opinion. That means
it's just their opinion. So he said, the only thing
I have to do is carry out who wins and loses.
But I as president, I will not obey dred Scott,
(11:37):
and I think he was right and he's not alone.
Thomas Jefferson said this, You know, Abraham Lincoln said, Andrew
Jackson fdr This. Presidents have always made the case that
Trump is making. Now I have the right to interpret
the Constitution too, and maybe ultimately it depends on the people,
because ultimately we have elections and then we can decide
whose interpretation of the Constitution we ultimately agree with with.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I would to ask your thoughts specifically on the offers
to federal employees.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
To basically take a buy out.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Right, you can quit by Thursday, and now it's been
extended to Monday as well, and you get paid till September.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
When we out in the general.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Public who work for large publicly traded corporations, who have
seen people be laid off ruthlessly and mercilessly, you know,
in the private sector.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Why is that.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Even that seems to me like the government should have
the right to make an offer of that sort because
it's a voluntary exchange.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
What is the what are the grounds there that this
is being challenged? And will will they hold up?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
You know, I have to say, Mandy, this is not
something I'm an expert on. Is you know, the internal
workings of you know, federal employment contracts. But I know
there is a lot of doubt about whether, you know,
whether the government is compared to a company which is
allowed to do what at once, right as long as
you just make a binding contract. It's not clear whether
(13:02):
the federal government can keep paying people who aren't working, right,
you know that. I mean you think about it as
a tax you know, you're a taxpayer. I'm a taxpayer. Uh,
you know, why should I give tax money the federal
government to turn around and pay people who aren't showing
up to work. So that's one problem. And then the
other problem is, you know, if they're really still federal
employees until you know, whatever time they stop, are they
(13:24):
allowed to go work for somebody else? Generally as a
tax payer, if I'm paying someone's salary, I don't want
them holding two jobs either, So no one. I just
don't think this has ever been worked out before because
this is a totally new proposal. But I know those
are going to be the legal issues. Is you know,
working for the government is different than working for their
private part. I wish the government worked like a private employer.
(13:46):
And this is Congress's fault because I think Congress has
placed so many rules and restrictions on what the government
can do that makes it hard for it to work
efficiently like a company would.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
And I think that's a big part of what we're
seeing now. And honestly, I think that President I call
it Trump two point oh. This administration is two point
zh so different than one point oh because he learned
how intractable government is, he learns how intractable Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Is.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And I actually think this is going to be a
lot of stuff that he is throwing against the wall,
knowing some of.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
It isn't going to stand.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
But at least we can begin to shake up the
kind of infrastructure that you're talking about right now that
is impossible to fire regardless of your job performance, and
all those horror stories that we've seen, and frankly, I
have friends who work for the federal government that I imagine
our outstanding human beings and employees as well. It'll kind
of be nice to separate maybe the week from the
chaff on that issue and see how all of that
(14:40):
gets sorted out. Because if the President is not successful
in sort of thinning the herd as they're trying to
do with usaid that organization, I'm concerned that there's not
going to be any way to have significant enough reforms
that can do something that will make a big enough
dent in our depth.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Is it spending.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Well? The way I would look at it is I
think President Trump has got to be right, and I
think if the polls I've seen show he has a
large sport American people, is can Congress force the government
to be inefficient, inefficient, and ineffective? It's like if President
Trump can say It's like as if Congress is saying, okay,
(15:23):
build a bridge from A to B and spend five
hundred million dollars on it. And what if Trump comes
back and says, we figured out how to build a
bridge for three hundred million dollars. Is does a president
have to burn up two hundred million dollars and waste it.
And I think that's fundamentally the constitutional conflict here is Congress,
of course wants the president to waste money because Congress
(15:45):
is trying to do favors for people and give out
more money than you need to. And so I think
that's what Trump's real argument is, and I think the
American people behind him is I want I'm not trying
to say I'm not going to spend the money. I'm
not going I'm trying to cancel laws. I'm trying to
I'm running the government like a business efficiently and effectively
to save money for the American people.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Last question, one of my texters asked, what about Doge?
What about the operation being headed up by Elon Musk
that people on the left are freaking out about right now,
because well, he's going after a lot of sacred cows.
How is that or is it not constitutional to do
what he's doing?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, this is a little bit complicated. I don't think
right now dog is violating any laws because I don't
think Elon Musk actually has the power to order anyone
to do anything. He's like an advisor, and you know,
there's nothing that says the president can't say, oh, I
want this person to give me advice on what to do.
(16:50):
And then that person, you know, whoever that is, maybe
it's the president himself, maybe it's a cabinet secretary. That
person then says, okay, close this office or has changed
this program. So Elon Musk is not shutting down Usaid.
Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State is shutting down Aid.
I looked up the law. The law says usaid reports
to the Secretary of State. Now, Mark Rubio is allowed
(17:13):
to listen to Elaon Musk. It just loves as long
he can listen to our radio show right now and
take our advice too. Nothing in the constitution prevents that.
So as long as Dose stays in that lane of
looking at numbers, giving advice to the president and the cabinet.
But they carry out the orders, they decide what to do,
then I don't think it's I don't think it has
(17:34):
a constitutional problem.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
He is a law professor at UC Berkeley. John Yu,
great information. Thank you so much, and I hope we
can do this again in the future.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Nice talking to you. I alway was happy to come back.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
All right, have a great day. That is John Yu
a fascinating stuff.
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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