Political Prosecutions Blow Up — Judge Rules Trump’s Prosecutor Was Illegally Appointed

Welcome to another episode of The Oath and The Office. I'm John Feigelsang and I'm not saying Pam Bondi's evil, but Macbeth just broke up with her. Folks, please welcome the star of the pod, Professor Corey Brechneider, who you might know from his work. I don't know, the Political Science Department at Brown University, possibly his work in the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, Time Magazine, and of course the book The Oath and The Office, a guide to the Constitution for future presidents. Professor Brechneider, it's good to see you again. Thanks, John. It's always such a pleasure. And, you know, every week gives us so many topics here. We'll talk about a judge throwing out these really ridiculous prosecutions of Comey and James. We'll talk about the Zoran Mamdani discussion and interview with Trump in the Oval Office in front of his cronies. So there's so much to get to looking forward to the conversation. Well, we got to talk about how a federal judge just knew to Donald Trump's ridiculous criminal cases against James Comey and Letitia James because Trump's prosecutor, Lindsay Halligan, wasn't legally a prosecutor. Not unqualified, not inexperienced, not maybe she shouldn't be in charge of imprisoning her boss's enemies. Like, she literally, Corey, wasn't allowed to do the job. The judge said all actions flowing from Ms. Halligan's defective appointment must be set aside. Corey, like, she's a recalled blender from Costco. Defective appointment. Now, break this down for us because Lindsay Halligan is not a federal prosecutor, not even a traffic court prosecutor. She was an insurance lawyer who competed in beauty pageant and Donald Trump likes her for some reason. That's who Trump sent into a federal grand jury to indict former FBI director and the sitting attorney general of New York. So let me just begin. What exactly did the court say here and why about Lindsay Halligan literally not being a prosecutor and how there's literally not an indictment against James Comey for that reason? Wow, there's so much wrong with this case. And of course, we've talked about it before, but there's a huge update. And, you know, if I were to pick the things that are most wrong with it, I'd have to go with the destruction of democracy simply using the power of the federal government to try to imprison your opponents. And we should never lose sight of the fact that that's what's going on. But, you know, that's not how the law works. You can't just sort of say not guilty. There has to be some argument. And what they've done here, what the defense has done is tee up an issue, which is whether or not the prosecutor, Halligan, is or is not legally appointed. And what we've got now is a ruling saying, no, this is not a legal appointment. So let's get into it. The first thing to just say is that the framers saw the danger of prosecution and they were very careful about who they were going to allow into these roles. So for most appointments, what's required is not just a nomination by the president, but confirmation by the Senate. Now, there are ways around that. There are interim prosecutors, U.S. attorneys that are allowable, but there's a limit usually of 120 days. And what happened in this case is the 120 days the judge said had expired. And of course, the previous prosecutor, just to get into it, the previous U.S. attorney refused to bring these cases because they were BS. So Halligan wasn't and could not be confirmed by the Senate. That's important to say because she's so unqualified, as you said. And she's not within this 120 days. So the judge said, this is not a prosecutor. It's not a legal appointment. And through the case out, now, we'll get into this, but there can be an appeal and there's a possibility that with a proper prosecutor, that the charges could be refiled. But that's where we are. So some good news. Well, now, Comey, Comey, know though, right? Comey has passed the statute of limitations now. They're too late. They've got to find some new thing he hasn't done to trap him with, I think. But now the judge... Well, there's a question. Just to... Sorry to interrupt. Please, no, please. You know, there are always... You know, these questions are so thorny and you would want to think like, oh, just get rid of it. They're ridiculous. But that's not how the law works, unfortunately. So there is an argument for bringing the charges against Comey again, which has to do with what's known as tolling. And so the question is whether or not the delay that's happened as a result of all these legal proceedings extend essentially or toll the statute of limitations. And I don't know what the answer to that is. It might be that the courts would say, OK, we're going to allow these charges to be filed because it's not a strictly met when legal process is underway. I don't want them to say that, but it could happen. No, but this is all going to come down to Donald Trump's hate versus his embarrassment. And what's going to ultimately win out? I acknowledge that. I see the science now. But the ruling was dismissed without prejudice, which to my understanding, professor means a real prosecutor could refile. Right. Right? I mean, very possible. How big a door does without prejudice keep open? Well, it means that, yeah, that with a legal prosecutor legally appointed, let's say that somebody is, for instance, nominated by the president for this role and then confirmed by the Senate. Well, then, yes, they could refile. Now, here's the real question. Are you going to be able to get anybody who has the kind of integrity necessary to get through Senate confirmation, even with a party that are essentially lackeys to the president that's willing to do that? The previous prosecutor who had this role was like, no way. I'm not putting my reputation on the line by bringing this lawless prosecution. And there is something still about the legal profession. The American Bar Association has taken such a stand and against what's happening in favor of the rule of law generally. There's a possibility of disbarment for engaging in this kind of misogas, for lack of a better word. And I think, also, at so much of what they had to do to get this indictment through a grand jury, they violated all sorts of constitutional rights, saying, for instance, that just trust us, there are parts of the indictment that you don't want to see. There's reporting now that suggests that there wasn't and that they wrongly lied to the grand jury and said that, well, if you don't hear from Comey, then that might be evidence against him. So there's all sorts of problems, to say the least, that are coming out with this prosecution. And I'm not sure that if you had a real prosecutor legally appointed that that person would be willing to bring these charges. I think we'd go right back to where we were before and that they'd say, no, I'm not going to do it. But yes, there's no legal bar in court from trying again. I mean, to me, we've seen so many state attorneys general being scared that Trump would retaliate against anybody who crossed him. It almost seems like this decision is going to give a lot of state officials new confidence to push back. I hope so. You know, I think that every time I think courage is contagious and every time you have public officials taking a stand against, and I'll keep using the phrase of this attempted self coup, this attempt to destroy democracy, to aggrandize the president into a kind of monarch. You know, people who know basic civics, seventh grade civics know you're not supposed to use prosecution to go after your opponents. And so when you start to see people say the emperor has no clothes or this is a wannabe authoritarian monarch, that's contagious. And this judge did the right thing here to my mind. It's not just that this was a horrible, unqualified prosecutor, but that the procedures weren't used properly to honor what the framers tried to do to ensure that people of virtue had these roles so they wouldn't be abused. One thing about it, I'll just say to zoom out a little bit, which is that, you know, we're in the nitty gritty of the 120 days of the statute that's allowable for interim U.S. attorneys, the idea of confirmation. But it's always important to see the big picture. Why were the framers requiring confirmation by the Senate to roles like this? And it's to ensure that, you know, that people were vetted, that they knew how dangerous prosecutors were in particular. And they didn't want a king who was able to just, you know, wipe aside their opponents. And so that's really what we're talking about when we talk about this nitty gritty here. Well, let's talk about the founders and what they wanted. And let's talk about following laws because last week we saw a group of six lawmakers, Senators Mark Kelly and Alyssa Slotkin, representatives Chris DeLuzio, Maggie Goodlender, Chrissy Hulahan, Jason Crowe, they put out this video. They're all U.S. military veterans or CIA veterans to gently remind the troops, hey, don't commit war crimes. We talked about it already. They said, we know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now. The administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens like us. You all swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Now, obviously, the story's been very, very covered. The president woke up, opened his phone and declared that these six Democrats were committing citizenship behavior punishable by death. He reposted 16 separate posts calling for these veterans to be murdered. 16, Corey, 16. So now Pete Hexeth, the secretary of Yeagermeister, a man who is not remotely qualified for his job, has tried to launch a probe this week that could recall Senator Mark Kelly, hero and astronaut and husband of Gabby Giffords. And the guy that I thought Kamala Harris was going to ask to be your running mate, he could now recall Senator Mark Kelly for active duty and court-martial him for the crime of reminding troops to not break the law. Corey, this is so stupid. It grieves me. We have to spend time on it. But it's also fascinating. Is there any basis whatsoever for this investigation? Because to my view, it just looks like Donald Trump and Pete Hexeth are really trying to make Mark Kelly president in 2028. Yeah, I think that is hopefully going to be the reaction. And let's try to make that happen partly by revealing this as the horrible authoritarian power grab that it is. Of course, this is part of the same theme of trying to destroy our basic system of government. And what's more basic in our system of government than the idea that unlawful orders to the military are illegal and shouldn't be followed by definition? That is the idea. And yet you have this war president and this war secretary of defense who have a totally different idea, which is that obedience to the president period is all that matters, no matter if the order is illegal or, as you said, a war crime or not. And all you have are individuals, including a member of the Senate, saying, no, you don't have to obey in order to commit a war crime. And of course, this isn't abstract as they're blowing up boats. Oh, it's so controversial. But here's what scares me, John. And one of the things we're always trying to do on the podcast is call out injustice, call out threats to democracy, but also talk in real terms about how these threats might become real. And so we talked about the fact that, yes, these prosecutions of Comey and James as awful as they are might continue. And there are ways. I hope not. I pointed out how I hope not. And that's true here, too. I would hope nothing could come of this. But here's the thing. This strategy of trying to recall the senator and essentially court marshal him at least raises the question, which is that there's no question that for a civilian, you have a First Amendment right to your opinion. And you certainly have a right to say what the actual truth is that you have an entitlement that you shouldn't obey an unlawful order. That that's just basic civics 101. But military officials have less rights under the freedom of speech under the First Amendment than civilians do. And so, you know, I don't think anything will come of this. But once we're in the world of military justice, things can happen that really are outside. Now, you know, let's add to this fact that this is a sitting U.S. senator. So this isn't just an attack on citizens. It's an attack on one of our main institutions on the U.S. Senate. But even here, and, you know, I'll say a tiny bit, which is that I'm filming now a documentary version of my book, The Presidents and the People. And one of the scenes that's so relevant is that we were in Philadelphia on the floor of what was the House of Representatives, beautifully preserved. And what I talk about in that scene, and I'll mention it now too, is that there was a sitting congressman in 1798, Matthew Lyons, who criticized the president, who was prosecuted for it. And in fact, ran from prison and was reelected. Congressman from Vermont. So it sounds insane. But yes, we've seen these kind of prosecutions in political history, even of a sitting congressman that's not unprecedented. Eugene Debs ran for president was that's right. Prosecutor ran from prison for being prosecuted again for his speech. These weren't people who committed crimes. They were just speaking out. And, you know, that's what's going on here, too. So it's horrible. It's dangerous. But we've seen these assaults on democracy before. We've gotten through them in the long term by fighting back, as you said, by politics, for instance, by elevating the person attacked. But could he get away with it in the short term? It's not unheard of. So, I mean, here's the thing. I'm with you all the way. This Pete Hegceth, this Fox News prompter monkey going after Mark Kelly. This is like a mall cop trying to arrest Captain America for loitering, right? But Senator Kelly. Can I just point out to the listeners and to you, which is that, of course, Pete Hegceth was an undergrad at Princeton University when I was a graduate student. And one of my duties was to teach sections or precept as Princeton calls it. And I know that I taught as a preceptor for a professor that Hegceth loved because he did a whole Fox News story about him. And I'm putting it at 85 percent that I was his TA, his preceptor. Yeah, you've got to let go of that chain. I don't know. This is my fault. I got it. You're never going to heal, Professor, unless you can let go of that. The name of the class that he said that taught that I was teaching with this professor, Civil Liberties. Oh, oh. Wow. How woke. Well, now they'll want to impeach him. I mean, Senator Kelly, I think framed this really well, Corey. He said that Trump has now declared loyalty to the Constitution to be punishable by death based on Donald Trump's posts, calling Democrats, traders who should be executed. But I mean, to the actual points that these veterans made originally, we know these boat strikes are extrajudicial killings. I mean, they had two survivors and they repatriated them to their home countries. So either they're innocent or we're letting these dangerous narco terrorists go. And that was met with pushback. That was overruled by Pam Bondi, the first ever attorney general made entirely of orange plastic. While this is going on, Trump is trying to get the military to invade more American cities because this is important. He believes illegal orders are just orders Democrats don't like. I mean, the guy does think the Constitution is like a cheesecake factory menu. There's too many words in these more pictures. But I mean, sending troops into polling stations. Jason Crowe listed the previously threatened illegal orders by Trump, sending troops into polling stations, shooting peaceful protesters, killing terrorist families. I mean, all all the Kelly video did. It's just Congress doing its duty to warn the military about unlawful orders. How dangerous do you think is the president's stochastic terrorism rhetoric in constitutional terms? I think it's enormously dangerous. And going way back to the Obama administration, the way you and I met, I don't know if you remember this, John, but I wrote a piece for Politico and it was called simply Trump versus the Constitution, call in a guide. This is when he was running in 2016. And I tried to say, you know, to America, the piece did get a lot of attention. And it led to our friendship and collaboration that if you look at each of these things, individually, they're bad. But when you add them up, and I'll just mention some of them, the promise to torture the families of suspected terrorists, not the terrorists themselves. That's a promise to shut down the libel laws, meaning to make it possible to get rid of any protection, First Amendment protection, and to allow libel law to be a sword to shut down dissent. And, you know, we could keep going. The promise of a total and complete shutdown of Muslim immigration into the United States that became the travel ban. If you look at any of these one things individually, they're bad. But if you add them up, they amount to a promise to destroy not just democracy, but the rule of law. And that's you see in this dialogue, he has no appreciation for the idea that he is not above the law. He thinks he is above the law the way an absolute monarch would, not even a constitutional monarch, but, you know, Louis XIV or some tyrant. And the idea that there could be some limit from something called the law, the law is something to evade for Trump. Think of it, you know, in terms of real estate, you know, you need your Roy Cohn, who's going to come in and pour it and just, you know, batter the judge, batter the opposition. It's just a weapon. It's not something that constrains you. And yet, you know, here we are. This is how Trump sees the world and he is president. It's not any office and just, you know, to tie the stories together. It's so important to do this. Why is he bringing prosecutions against his political opponents? How can he do that? Well, it's because he essentially controls the Department of Justice, including the U.S. attorneys. And so which brings us back to disbarment, Tammy, go on. We hope so. We can fight back, you know, in all of these cases, but it is dangerous, all of it because of his assault on, again, not just the Constitution, not just democracy, but the very idea that he's constrained by law. That is what's so scary about this moment. It sums it all up to me. No, absolutely. And again, I mean, this is, I think it's really more of a trial balloon. I mean, they know how stupid this makes them look historically. And there's tons of active duty and retired military who are going to look at this and realize how profoundly dishonest the White House is being. I mean, just lies, building on lies. Like they've had to lie about it and right wing media on Fox. They constantly said, oh, he was, they were telling troops to disobey the president. No, they were telling troops to follow the law. But before we get to the... That's a harder concept to understand, though, than a lot of... Oh, I know. People are willing to, you know, not just... Well, authoritarianism doesn't want you to follow the law. Exactly. And there are authoritarian... And they're not authoritarian. ...the strong man. Right. And there aren't just authoritarians in power. There are authoritarian personalities who want to obey. And Fox News is encouraging that. And people who don't see the world in terms of principles or the rule of law, who think that the guy is in charge, he's the leader, bow down to him. And Trump, of course, often says that in his admiration for dictators. That's my worry, that the chilling effect here is severe. And that military who are listening to all this, who might find themselves on the streets being asked to fire on civilians, you know, it's a confusing thing to face in order like that. Do you disobey, which the law would require, and, you know, not just firing willy nilly on civilians, no question. But the president said to do it. And, you know, that's... I guess, yeah, I don't... ...the worry. They might go along some of them. I don't find it confusing, Professor. I think the ones who choose to follow the law... It shouldn't be. It's not for you and me. But it is. The ones who choose to follow the law will follow the law on the ones who want to abuse and hurt people because we'll do it if the president gives them the license to do it. Do you expect us to see more of these really stupid, counterproductive, selective investigations? From this White House, I mean, probing the critics and just ignoring the loyalists. They're going to try, and they're going to try to keep putting in their loyalists because this was their lesson from Trump 1.0. They saw that people who have minimum integrity are not who they want in these positions of power. And that's why you have at the top of the Justice Department. Let's not forget, she's there. Pam Bondi is not a person of integrity. She's not somebody to say the least who has anything but loyalty for this president. And that isn't, you know, she is confirmed. She's not interim. And that's a powerful position to have a pure loyalist in because, you know, it's complicated, but essentially all the US attorneys work for the Department of Justice. And there are maneuvers that she can take herself to make these prosecutions happen if they have trouble getting people in these positions. And, you know, there isn't a question about her legal appointment. That's what's so scary. OK, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, I want to talk to you about the death of Doge and the birth of the Trump-Zoran mom, Donnie LaFest. My God, I bet Eric and Don Jr. wish he talked that nicely about them just once. We'll be back in just a moment. This is the Oath and the Office. Hey, all. Glenn Kirchner here. Friends, I hope you'll join me on my audio podcast, Justice Matters. We talk about not only the legal issues of the day, but we also talk about the need to reform ethics in our government. Here's one example. The Oath of Office. You know the one. I do solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Let's add 22 words to that oath. Quote, and I will promptly report any instances of crime and or corruption by government officials and employees of which I become aware. Friends, our democracy is worth fighting for. Join us in this fight because justice matters. Look for Justice Matters wherever you ordinarily find your podcasts. Welcome back to the Oath and the Office. I'm John Fugel saying, so let's go back, Professor Bretschneider, through the midst of time to an ancient land called Early 2025, when Elon Musk, a man who is truly a debit to his race, was allowed to become the third worst president of my lifetime after Dick Cheney, Vladimir Putin, and Elon Musk. And we had the Department of Government Efficiency, which didn't even have an actual office, and it was really just in charge of trying to decimate the civil service to shave a few dollars off the budget to give it away to rich guys in a tax cut. Trump has disbanded Doge eight months after its charter. And this might be the first time in history a president has disbanded an office that may not have actually existed. Corey was just a grift with stationary. I mean, what is this confusion? Tell us about the governance structure or lack thereof inside this administration. Well, it helps them to essentially wipe it away entirely because there were so many lawsuits about their actions being illegal, similar actually to our first story about whether this was a legal appointment. Because if he was a principal officer, Elon Musk in charge of what arguably was one of the most important agencies at the time, just based on what they were doing, going on dismantling the entire federal government or a lot of it, including USAID, which resulted in horrible starvation and consequences for people around the world. That if he was such an important figure, the Constitution requires that he would have to be confirmed by the Senate. So who was this guy? And yet, of course, he was not and likely couldn't have been. And now all these lawsuits, all these claims are just disappearing. And how do you do that? You claim it doesn't exist anymore. Maybe that it never existed. And of course it did. Part of the dynamic, too, is that you have in the head of Project 2025, Russell Vought, who we've talked about, somebody who wanted to accomplish the same goals as Musk, but he wanted to do it legally and methodically in a way that would last. And in a way, even though we've gotten rid of this, you know, wild character, Elon Musk, dangerous, reckless, more dangerous is the person who understands how government works. And so I think he's very happy vote to be done with Musk. And, you know, now his vision of Project 2025 of really permanently dismantling so much of the federal government might come to pass. And here's the worry that might do it in a way that would get upheld in court. So on the one hand, I'm glad to be done with the dose chapter. It was so reckless. And yet I'm very worried about what's coming next. Yeah, me too. I mean, in looking at this, what are the constitutional implications when the executive branch is allowed to create entities that have no transparency, no oversight, and in this case, seemingly no paperwork. This was just a bunch of douchebags running rough shot over the government. Yeah. I mean, I think there are dangers in both the danger of Musk and Doge was that they were, you know, for example, they found an office in the Treasury Department that controlled a lot of the funding. Now, the funding decisions of allocation or withdrawal are supposed to come from Congress. Congress, you've heard this phrase often, has the power of the purse. But Musk was like, well, I'm going to hack this. I'm going to hack the US government. How do I do that? Where is the actual purse? Okay, it's in this office. And then, you know, let's break in there. Let's shut off the funds. So all of that is so highly illegal, highly unconstitutional. And that was part of the danger that they were trying to set up a dictatorship in this really ad hoc, willy-nilly dangerous way in the sort of language of Silicon Valley of, you know, breaking everything and starting again. And yet here's what's to me equally dangerous, maybe worse, is a constitutional savvy person like Russell Vought, who understands the mechanisms of how to actually accomplish the same goals, maybe in a slower way, but that will be upheld in court and will be slower. And, you know, Vought, for instance, wants to challenge a lot of the legislation that was passed after Nixon, that banned impoundment. The, the ban, the president from saying, I'm just not going to spend these funds. Vought thinks those are unconstitutional. So he's looking for instances where he can tee up issues where the Supreme Court is going to enable essentially the same thing that must wanted to do to destroy the power of Congress to aggrandize the president's power. And he might get away with it because he knows what he's doing. And if it's not a vote, it's his allies. But it seems like they've already gotten away with it under Elon's messy system. I mean, you know, I'm not sure this is simply chaos or if it doesn't fit in quite neatly, Corey, with the larger theme of Donald Trump creating shadow authority outside of normal legal challenges. I mean, none of these people are getting their jobs back. Right? Like, like the fact that, oh, Joe didn't really exist. Well, that doesn't render null and void all the damage they did and all the career civil servants who lost their livelihoods. I think that's right. And, you know, that's a good way to put it, that the recklessness sticks. Now the question is, how do you continue to do it? Well, they're not going to do it in this willy nilly attack dog way because there were a number of suits against Musk himself. And a lot of them focused on the question of whether or not he was lawfully appointed. That might have led to injunctions. It might have led to a Supreme Court decision ultimately against a lot of what they were doing. But the fact that so much has been done already and there isn't a way to attack it by attacking Doge now step in the, you know, not people of, I wouldn't call them integrity, but people who know what they're doing. And the legal challenges become much harder. So yes, that chaos and the immediacy of it, the acting followed by getting rid of all the chaos agents, that's part of the danger. Maybe that's the way to put it, that they will get away with it, partly because they've been wiped away. So there's sort of madness in the chaos that it is working for them. And, you know, as much as we can talk about instances where we're fighting back and winning, I don't want to lose sight of the point that you made, which is we're not going to put back USAID. We're not going to put back this infrastructure. They're not going to start obeying the role of Congress when it comes to allocation, you know, the shutdown was an attempt to do that. But now that that's over, it's very hard to think about how we're going to fight back. So let's talk then about the feel good story of the month. No, not the Epstein files being released. Not Marjorie Taylor Green leaving. Donald Trump walked into the Oval Office to meet with Zoran Mamdani, mayor-elect of New York. He was already to scream, foreign Muslim, jihadist, communist. And instead he walked out, professor, saying, this is my special little rational boy. I love him. I want to talk to you about what we witnessed with Donald Trump and the flattery machine. It was like the bachelor and Trump gave Zoran the final rose before they even went on camera. This guy was so giggly, Corey. He was so thirsty. He was looking like he was trying to join Zoran's fan club. I mean, he was like, you need someone younger and more popular. Who New Yorkers like? And he's the only man in this room who's not a kiss ass. Is this love? You know, like the MAGA folks had no objections to seeing Donald Trump with the terrorist leader of Syria. They had no problem seeing Donald Trump bury his face in the lap of murderer, Mohammed bin Salman. Oh, but the nice liberal Muslim. That's who we were told it's going to be a showdown. We were sold this by Fox News. It's going to be a showdown in the Oval Office. And then the whole thing shows up and Zoran doesn't compromise a single value. He didn't soften any stances. He sat there like, yes, you're a dictator. Yes, Gaza is genocide. Yes, working people matter. And Trump's like, it's okay. You can call me fascist. It's okay. Corey, I'm still trying to get over this. I mean, on a one level, I'm not totally surprised. It makes a lot of sense. Zoran knows how to charm people. And Donald Trump's ethnic group, I've always said, is celebrity. If you're famous, he'll act like you're one of his. But after all the months of spreading racist, bigoted lies about this guy, and then meeting him and offering him support right away and essentially nuking a leastophonic scuba editorial campaign, which is all based on this guy's a crazy giotist. What is this pattern revealed to you, Professor, about the nature of this president's authoritarian style? Cause it's luster, it's threat, and then it's total collapse. If you give me a cookie. Yeah, what a great characterization on one of the bizarre moments of this wild point in American history. I'll start with just the question of the president's ideology. You know, he, I think is an authoritarian when it comes to his personality and critics and those who go after him like a true authoritarian, he wants to slap them down. That's what's going on in our two main stories for today, the prosecution of James and Comey and also this idea that somehow saying, don't follow illegal orders is a violation of his power. All those speak to an authoritarian personality, but when it comes to ideology, ideas, you know, he's not sophisticated. And so when he sees somebody who's a skillful politician who's saying things that to him sort of sound like what he's saying. And let's not forget the kind of not just charm, but the sophistication of mom Donnie, how he, he, he brought this out of him. He, he said, for instance, and must have done this in the private meeting too, that he went out in New York and talked to voters who voted for Trump. And they also voted for me. And Trump is like, oh, this guy, the people who like me like this guy. You know, that's the level and the mentality that he's thinking on. So, you know, ideological socialism, that matters less to him than does this guy like me or not. And then, you know, he talked about their goals of making the cost of living. And then real estate, you know, this president, and I have one more thing to add, but real estate speaks to him. That's his language. He went in there and talked about the need for more housing. Maybe the Trump organization might be involved in that. I'm sure he didn't offer it, but in Trump's mind, that's how nobody, that's his say, her thing. There's no Ron says, oh, more housing and instantly kaching kaching. Can I get a taste? Can I get a taste? Can I get a taste? Maybe. So all these are tempting him. And now there's a, I watch the full 30 minutes, I should say, which I recommend to people because it is an amazing piece of political theater. But at one point Trump said, and I've mentioned this, I grew up, as you know, around New York politics. And one thing that he says that really just brings it out. And I remember Trump, of course, from the 1980s as a kid, is that really what he wanted was to be mayor of New York City. What a great job that was. Or King of New York City. King of New York City, maybe. He was, he didn't want to work or he didn't want to do the work. He was never going to win that election. And so what's the next best thing, much to the danger of the world in all of us? It's president of the United States. So here's a guy who he could be friends with, who he admired, who's also good at this, and he's got the job that he wants. So I think all these sort of added up to this weird love fest. And just to point out, if people haven't seen it, some of the strange things that happen, Trump surrounds himself with a gaggle of acolytes. These aren't real reporters. They're from white supremacists or far right. All of them. Websites. And they're saying things to the mayor-elect, things like, why did you fly here rather than take the train? And Trump himself had to jump in. He's like, you know, he's very busy and it takes, it's a lot shorter to fly. So he's just jumping into all this. He's helping him out. Yeah. I mean, and then, you know, he's smiling at him. I've never seen him smile at Eric. Never seen him smile at Eric. But oh, he's going to adopt this kid. And meanwhile, at least at least the phonics, at least the phonics traipsing around upstate New York going, I'm done. He did the hottest. And Trump's like, no, he's really rational. I mean, we saw him at a gay bar the night before a legend day. What kind of jihadist is that for God's sakes? But let me ask you this. How about the fascist point, John? I mean, is that not our favorite point where he says, he says to him, well, one of the one of the gaggle of these acolytes of these kiss up people that Trump surrounded himself with in the Oval Office says, well, didn't you call Trump a fascist? And then Trump pauses for a second and says, you know, it's OK. Yeah, you can call me a fascist. Amazing. Yeah, it's all a game to him. But I got to ask, Professor, you know, this this guy was last week threatening to withhold federal funding to New York City. I mean, he was threatening if Mamdani was elected, that he as president would cut off federal funds to the city that gives the federal government so much more than it takes back. Is threatening to withhold federal funds from cities based on election outcomes you don't like legal, Corey? Is that even remotely constitutional? Like, I don't think anyone around him was taking anything he said seriously. And certainly Mamdani wasn't. Well, John, this is one of the real, you know, it fits our theme. And I wish I could answer in a way that said, yes, obviously, the Supreme Court would stop that. They would say it's a First Amendment right or an abuse of the coercive action under the courts precedence. But the truth is that under a case called the Dull versus South Dakota and there are a number of others, the power of the federal government to use incentives and disincentives, including the revocation of federal funds, that is a power of the federal government and possibly of the president. And now there's supposed to be limits to that that have to do with the fund. It can't be all funds. But we saw him starting to do this in the first term and he's threatening to do it again. And yes, the court might regard it not as the same as coercing somebody you disagree with. I think that, you know, those are First Amendment violations, but as the prerogative of the president to give or withdraw money. And that is a very real danger that he might do that to New York. And the fact that they're getting along and saying that he's not likely to do it. Same with troops. So the president can't commandeer a local police station. All of these, by the way, are under the umbrella of the constitutional doctrine of federalism. Certain powers are giving to the federal government, including the spending power. And then some are reserved to the states. So that's always what we're talking about. But one of those powers, the spending power might be used to withdraw funds. So there are limits. You can't just go to the New York Police force and take it over if you're the president of the United States as much as he'd want to. But what can you do? You can build up agencies under your control like ICE and use them as a kind of military force and send them in. And we've often discussed you could potentially use the military or commandeer under the Insurrection Act, the National Guard, not the police. Right. All of those are possible. And so that's why when we talk about this, I wish I could say, he can't do that. What a great show. I would like to show more. If every time you said, can he do that? I said, no, he can't do that. He can't do that. But that's not the reality of how it works. We have a system in which the president is enormously powerful, where courts have enabled him, where legislation has passed on powers. The Insurrection Act is like that to the federal government. And that's why this is such a frightening moment. Yes, if he didn't like Mom Donny, he didn't go well. We might be in a very different world in New York right now. Yeah. Well, right before the election, friend of the pod, Jake Tapper, was talking to Trump's adviser, Kevin Hassett, on CNN. And he asked him about, you know, Trump threatening to withhold federal funding. Was it all bluster? He didn't mean it. Let me quote Kevin Hassett directly. Top economic adviser, he said, well, it feels like he doesn't mean it now. It feels like he doesn't mean it now. This policy is based on vibes, Corey. I mean, not really on a set policy or ideology. How dangerous should we regard it when federal power appears to be wielded according to the personal mood swings of someone? Yeah, I could be suffering from who could be suffering from decades of untreated syphilis. I should point out, please. I mean, I think that as we, you know, as much as it was fun to watch this, to watch Mom Donny as a skillful politician, you know, weave around this wildly dangerous, erratic president, we also have to recognize the fact that part of why it felt so good is because with all that power that I just talked about, is the ability to inflict harm. And so his mood swings are so frightening. Let me just illustrate this. This won't make people feel more secure. It will make you feel less, but it's the reality. During Nixon's the end of his term right before he resigned, he was drinking a lot and the Secretary of Defense was very worried about this because the power to launch a nuclear weapon doesn't rest with Congress. It doesn't rest with the Secretary of Defense. It rests with the president. And so illegally, the Secretary of Defense said to those in the launch sequence, basically in the command and control, I don't care what the law is. If he calls you to try to launch a nuclear weapon, call me because he was drinking so much that and acting so erratically. That is a dramatic. So what we're doing is that that's going to be furious. Pete Hexeth is going to hit the roof when he hears about this someday, Corey. The idea that Pete Hexeth is going to save us, too, in the way that the Defense Secretary during Nixon might have. I don't think so. Wow. So that's just, you know, that's the reality. You know, we talked about this with Ted Liu. I highly recommend if we have new listeners to go back and listen to that. That's why that first strike bill that as he calls it, is so important that he's been a champion of for a long time to really try to reset the powers of the president. So the president can't launch because they're drunk, for instance, a nuclear attack. And let's also point out Donald Trump's various threats about federal funding as a political weapon. Boy, Corey, is sure tends to be targeted in marginalized communities, doesn't it? Sure, always tends to be targeted at cities that aren't filled with Caucasian folks that love Trump. All right, we've got to take a very short break. We'll be back in just a moment to try to tie all this together with the oath and the office. Don't go away. Here's what you've been missing on the Stephanie Miller happy hour podcast from Ms. Farma, Virginia Jufree's ghostwriter, just dropped a bombshell in which she's saying every single name from the Epstein files, plus private recordings back at all up in France, apparently has copies of everything. Like the country of France. Yes. I mean, that's they're saying a lot of foreign intelligence agencies probably have this, which makes me feel better that they're not going to be able to release obviously scrubbed. Of course. Russia has to. Yes. Why do you think Trump's been getting doglocked by Netanyahu and Putin for how many years? Stephanie, Russia, Russia, Russia. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. She's saying, oh, she's sitting on every single name from the Epstein file. I'm sorry, Virginia Jufree's ghostwriter, plus private recordings to back it all up. So, yeah, between that private intelligence, I wouldn't be surprised if there was like a Watergate style break into the ghostwriter's house to steal all of this information. Right. That's what Nixon did. Right. By the way, you know how you really know when someone is completely full? Oh, is when there's too many words, you know, wordy, wordy, talky, talky. Oh, yeah, this one that helped drop the heat sent out. So when he signed the thing because he had to. Yeah. So I'm telling you, Pam Bondi's his last, you know, it's the last chamber on the Titanic for him. He was the single period in that entire long thing. I can't do the whole statement from the bassinet. It was crazy when I saw that. Jeffrey Epstein, who was charged by the Trump Justice Department in 2019, not the Democrats was a lifelong Democrat donated thousands of dollars to Democrat politicians with deeply associated with many well-known Democrats. This latest hoax will backfire for the Democrats. Just as all the rest of them have. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Make America great again. OK. So and in between there, words, words, words, wordy, wordy, words, words, words, words, more words, occasional all caps. Yeah. Yes. OK. The scribblings of a crazy person. Yes. Yes. Welcome back to the oath and the office. I'm John Fiebel, signing Professor Corey Brechneider is with me. Corey, looking at all the stories we've we've talked about today. I mean, the the fake prosecutors, the illegal investigations, disappearing agencies, funding threats. Are we just witnessing an administration testing how far it can go in dismantling constitutional constraints? I mean, they don't really seem to have any grand plan to help people. I think, you know, that's the reality of where we are, that he has told us many times who he is. And when he says he admires dictators, he wants his people to obey. He means it. And in the first term, he was blocked so often by civil servants, by public officials, but coming back now with this playbook of loyalty over the law, the theme of today, I am still worried. I wish I could say we're winning. He's trying to destroy the Constitution and he's he's facing the consequences. And of course, in each moment, there is hope. There's the senator from Arizona talking about Dona Bay illegal orders. The judge stopping the prosecutions. But that's not the end of the story. It's still people are resisting. They're fighting back. That's what we all have to do. Of course, you know how excited and energized I was by the No Kings rally. But the fact is, none of those stories are at the end. So yes, those prosecutions are both Comey and James could continue. Yes, he may well issue illegal orders. He likely has been doing so already and will continue to do so. And the horrific thing is as much as you and I in our audience knows that's wrong, not to do it. People on the ground in the military very well might follow them because the easier thing to do rather than to think about the difficult question of is this an illegal order or maybe the not so difficult question resisting the order from the president is hard. The military is set up as a command and control organization. You know, orders of the default is to follow them. The harder question under our law is what do you do when the orders are illegal? That that is at minimum going to feel difficult in the moment. So that's why this is such a dangerous period in our history and continues to be so. I mean, I hate to ask a dumb question, but moving forward in the next three years of this lame duck presidency, what should Americans understand about the difference between normal political conflict like we all grew up with and authoritarian abuse of state power? Like we have to have this tutorial, don't we? Yeah, I mean, I have to say to John that, you know, I'm teaching freshmen through seniors at Brown this year as always. And a lot of they have all really grown up with this politics. They can't really remember. They remember the Biden period, but it was a break between these two presidencies. So to them, and this is awful to realize as much as so many of our listeners realize how different it is from a politics that was much more normal. This is their normal. This attack on democracy, it's a chilling idea. And when you try to explain to some of them, even those who are more progressive minded, how off this is, that's not really how they see it. They see the whole system as dangerously authoritarian, as complicit in this man's prejudice, in his civil rights violations, in his attack on the rule of law. And, you know, that's a reality check that this has been with us for so long that it doesn't seem normal to some of our listeners and really almost all of my students. So in this age, let me close it with this, Corey. I mean, we're in this era where obedience to the Constitution should not just be allowed but expected. And we all seem to have decided, well, we're in the middle of this stress test. We'll give it three years and then respect the Constitution again. I mean, there's no fear of prosecution. Right? For any of these crimes or constitutional norms being shattered, what tools are still left? The courts, the Congress, state officials, civil society to resist these abuses. It's just going to come down to all of us, right? Being informed and hoping that the courts hold. Yes. I mean, there are, you know, actors who are fighting back. You have this judge who did dismiss this case on the grounds that she should have, that this was an illegal appointment. We have the No Kings rally. We have senators like the senator from Arizona sticking up and saying what's right. But the reality is we are in a moment in which the power rest with want to be authoritarian. And so these are acts of resistance, but there are acts that are leading to something, which is the midterms and the next presidential election. And hopefully they're also leading to what didn't happen during the Biden administration, a way through legislation to correct the risk of abuse. We've got to think not just about Trump, but about the next president that might try and authoritarian takeover of the United States. And in the same way that after Nixon, we had a series of laws that did protect us, including the Independent Council Act, the Emergencies Act, laws that we can go into a future episode. And that I did get to talk to actually about with Ted Lu about. And he sees this as part of his mission and was why he was such an important guest for us. And when we have Sheldon White House next week, we'll talk to him about it. But we need to restructure our government through legislation that rains in the risk of a dangerous president, not just to win an election. That is part of it, of course, but to really fix the system. Professor Corey Bretschner, I want to thank you again. And I want to thank all of our listeners. I want to remind everybody to please subscribe and give us a good review and share our episodes and hey, check out the YouTube page as well. And send us your letters, right, Corey? We read them on the air. Yes, we've every few episodes. We're taking questions and you can write to me at Corey dot Bretschner at gmail.com. I'm reading them. I'm collecting them. And in a couple of weeks, we'll we'll take a bunch of them together. So keep sending them in. Of course, subscribe on Apple or wherever you get your podcast. We're on Spotify and really all the audio podcasts. And yes, our YouTube is really taking off. So subscribe there. Watch us. Not just listen to us. And finally, I'll mention if you're on sub stack, we have a weekly newsletter that summarizes the discussion or discussion with guests and has links to articles and also sometimes previews. What's about to come out, including again, Senator Whitehouse next week from Rhode Island, an amazing person fighting back against Trump. Well, thank you so much, Professor. I want to wish everybody a very happy Thanksgiving. And I want to wish everybody a very happy Ukraine surrender deal. If that's what you're rooting for. We got to talk about that next week, Corey, because my God, did you read this surrender agreement? This thing was so Russian. I think it hacked the DNC. So we'll get to that next week. But in the meantime, thank you to Wendy and Bay Wolf and everyone else who helped bring us the oath in the office. And I'm going to add just one more thank you to our audience and also, of course, best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving.