From Tariffs to Nukes — How Congress Can Stop Trump’s Power Grabs (with Rep. Ted Lieu)

Welcome to another edition of the oath and the office. I'm John Fugl saying on this episode Congressman Ted Lu joins us to discuss the new no first strike bill for those worried about elderly narcissistic authoritarians with no impulse control and decades of untreated syphilis launching nukes based on vibes. And also folks it is official Trump's economy is collapsing and he's decided the best way to fix it is to tear down the White House and build himself a ballroom of the damned. Trump said it he said it this year real quote it wanted to fear with the existing building it'll be near it not touching it which is also what he said about the Constitution. So let's bring in the star of the pod Professor Corey Brechneider who is the rock star in the police side department at Brown you've read his stuff in Politico New York Times CNN MSNBC and of course he is the author of the book the oath and the office a guide to the Constitution for future presidents. Professor Brechneider it's great to see you again. Thanks so much John this is of course a really special episode there's a lot to talk about before Congressman Lu joins us but the whole theme of the podcast is holding a president to account to the oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution as required. Now what branch is supposed to do that? Well the judiciary and of course most fundamentally the framers thought Congress and most Congress people for whatever reason have totally abandoned that obligation and the reason I would say was not most sir not most no not most of one party I would say but not most yes yeah well unfortunately in the current distribution that's most the uh I wish that wasn't true but one person I was going to single out who really has you know just more than lived up to that obligation to understand how our constitutional system is supposed to work is Congressman Lu and he's done so much to really reclaim the powers of Congress and that's why I was very eager to have him on so this is an amazing episode and of course there are lots of constitutional violations to talk about along with the hope that we'll bring in that interview. Amen well I'm a big fan of Congressman Lu he's joined my series XM show many times he's even Cory joined us on stage for several of the sexy liberal comedy tour performances and yet he still speaks to me so I'm really honored but uh I want to begin with a question Cory that I need your help on and that is will Donald Trump's tariffs be able to survive the same legal test that killed Joe Biden's student debt relief and climate rules and COVID protections yes friends it's time for the very sexy topic called the major questions doctrine now I'm still learning about this professor I need you to explain but I know that the major questions doctrine is the court's relatively new judge invented rule that says and tell me if I'm wrong here if a president takes sweeping economic action like you know canceling student loan interest debt or regulating carbon emissions that Congress has to have given explicit permission in the statute now chief justice roberts summed it up this way congress doesn't hide elephants in mouse holes but here's the twist trump's tariffs I believe rest on a law that doesn't even mention tariffs the international emergency economic powers act of 1977 gives the president certain powers in a national emergency but not as I understand it as a layman mook the authority to rewrite global trade policy or tax americans on imported goods so now the court has to decide does major questions only apply to democrats Cory you were part of a supreme court briefing explaining congress's historic power to regulate tariffs and I'm pretty sure your argument draws on that founding chestnut no taxation without representation can you walk us through how tariffs fit into that constitutional framework thanks and I'll just first say what my involvement in this case is and I'm very proud to be involved the supreme court litigator who's argued many times before the supreme court Paul Wilson and I have teamed up with the aid of his amazing team at democracy forward and we're joined by a number of people who I invited to join as scholars so this is an amicus brief the way that it works is that sometimes the court and the parties involved in cases look to people like me and they say tell us the truth like what actually is going on in the history of the united states in the constitution and use put your credibility on the line we sign these briefs and tell us how we should think about this and you know I wanted to get involved with this because I think it's so clear not only as you say that congress didn't hand over the power to the president to enact arbitrary tariffs but actually in the end of the nixon period in the post nixon period legislation and this is an important piece of it was passed to actually limit the power of the president so there have been moments in american history where the congress has handed over power and periods where it's reclaimed them and part of what we'll talk about of course with congressman lew is the need for a future moment of reclaiming but in the case of tariffs of economic emergencies the president is actually relying on a law the international called aipa which creates international emergencies and circumstances in which they can happen but when it created this law it was raining power in it talked about the need for instance for an unusual and extraordinary circumstances in which there was an external shock to the united states that's not what's going on in these tariffs the president of the united states is trying to rectify long-standing trade imbalances there is not an extraordinary ununusual circumstance it's a very normal circumstance so he's trying to use a law that all of us fought for that our democracy fought for to rein in the president and he's trying to use it to expand his own power that's really a lying about history the major questions doctrine fits in and that what we're saying is look you the supreme court not only do you recognize that when a statute says you can't do something you you will rein in the executive branch but you the supreme court have announced a doctrine that says actually when the congress hasn't been clear in handing over power we're going to default to congress one more thing john i know this is a lot but it's such an important case you can tell i'm passionate about i've been working on it for weeks finally getting the opportunity to talk about it in depth but one thing we're saying in the brief is that the question of whether or not this is one of these major questions and fundamental policy questions where the default should be for congress we're saying this has always been the fund not just a fundamental question but maybe the fundamental question in american constitutional law and politics think of the phrase no taxation without representation was resistance to not just a tax the way we usually think of it but specifically a kind of tax a tariff so this is not just a major questions it's one of the most fundamental in american history and we highlight this post nixon law that we talked about but also the way this has been a major question throughout american history that was a mouthful but i can tell i'm a constitutional scholar i get excited about things like no no and i appreciate it i'm sorry that i still have so many major questions about the major questions doctrine but you know i went to one of those public schools the republicans hate so much kory i get that trump has turned tariffs into this political weapon aimed at our allies like canada without congressional approval i don't see how it helps america i know it makes putin happy i don't understand anything more than that but constitutionally speaking i get that this is exactly the kind of executive over each the framers were warning against but how did this doctrine evolve i mean how has it been used to strike down biden era policies on climate change student dead and coven protections and yet now they're trying to use the same law the same doctrine the same mentality to let trump do whatever he wants i love it i have to just throw in a shout out to public schools i also am a product of public schools ps 188 q and queens and i is 74 uh also in queens and ridgewood high school in new jersey so yes public schools all the way going to that really important point and you know now as usual john you know we started out with a kind of basic explanation and now we're really jumping into it where does this major questions doctrine come from and i think the original concern of the court and now i'm going to get a little wonky but i think our listeners sometimes will go with us in this direction stop me if anything's unclear uh it comes from a concern really to rein in executive agencies and worry about the court that the federal government not not the president but that agencies were really being given too much leeway in areas like environmental protection and we talk for instance about the reversal of the chevron case trying to rein in the discretion of agencies like the environmental protection agency uh that's not a trend that progressives have tended to like and it's one that i didn't love but we have this law and now what i'm trying to do in the brief and joined by amazing scholars like laurence lesig of harvard who is actually my teacher at stanford law school uh and others is to say look if you're going to say that the agencies are reigned in that has to mean that the president is reigned in and now here's my move especially if you believe in the unitary executive the unitary executive says there is no difference between agencies and the president so we're trying to use this well doctrine that's born in something that's not that great to create a fundamental check on the president of the united states and we believe that just being consistent with what the court said requires stopping the president in one of the most abusive and arbitrary moments of this presidency as bad as it is and let me just lay out what we're talking about what a king does what's the reason why the revolution and the constitution gave the fundamental power to regulate tariffs to congress along with taxation is because they could be so abusive think of a king who in an arbitrary way just you know on based on impulse or his or her own self-interest just starts willy nilly throwing tariffs on countries abroad not for concern about the country as a whole that's part of what an absolute monarchy does and that's exactly what trump's done i don't like candidate today tariff i don't like china today tariff you know and the arbitrariness i think is part of what we're opposing you're exactly right professor it's like it's like you know oh i don't like candidate playing rattle reagan's exact words my god kory like i know they're really offended by jesus's exact words and i've learned this year they're really offended by charlie kerrk's exact words but now rattle reagan's exact words they'll slap a tariff on you but here's what's crazy kory the law we're talking about doesn't use words like tariff or tax or right duty so under the court's own logic shouldn't trump's use of it fail the major questions test absolutely i mean i know it certainly should fail the major questions test because the statute that they're relying on aipa this international circumstances for creating international emergencies not only didn't hand over the power but it reigned it in they look for instance at nixon's abuses and i do want to say something about this history nixon of course used emergencies including economic emergencies to enact his own desires without going through congress and presidents actually going way back had used emergencies in ways that extended them really forever to give them discretion to act in a kind of monarch like way yeah and after the nixon administration there were a series of laws in a bunch of different areas including the war powers and the war powers act this was passed actually at the end of nixon's presidency after his objections tried to rein in his ability to initiate war and any president's ability the emergent the national emergencies act tried to rein in the ability of any president including as trump tried to do uh to to just reallocate funds claiming emergency to build that wall a kind of horrible abuse of emergency and this was meant to rein in the ability to do things exactly like this to willy nilly just create your own terrace without going through congress and what we're saying is not only did it under the court's doctrine not hand over the power to the executive branch but it did the opposite it reigned it in and it's not just that that the congress said that and if you look at our brief we talk about the history of this conscious decision to say look congress has sometimes handed over power and it sometimes brought it back we are bringing it back they say that's their purpose but they also put it into the law itself in this language of defining emergency in regard to unusual and extraordinary circumstances circumstances that have to really come from an external shock an external event those are all ways of reigning in the president's power rather than expanding it what does all this have to do well we have moments in history where we say to presidents no more no more abuse are we going to honor those moments are we going to make them meaningless by allowing this president to just really wipe away law and you know this is a fundamental moment for the supreme court because we're not just saying hey as we are in roe vs wade adopt a progressive or a moderate stance in in regard to the constitution we're saying adopt your own idea of where the limits are yeah well let's bring it to something a bit sexier and that is the ballroom of the damned i know tariffs are fun i know the millennials just want to talk tariffs all day but right now as thousands potentially millions of americans are losing their jobs losing their health care losing their savings they're bulldozing the east wing literally so trump can host galleys for the billionaires who caused all this this is this is like the great gatsby but instead of gatsby spending his money to impress one woman it's gatsby desperately spending our money to impress freaking anyone and it will be our money i don't care how many oligarchs are giving money right now for the construction of it we the people will pay for the maintenance of this forever kory trump was such a big fan of the existing white house that he had it demolished which is like saying you're a big fan of abraham lincoln so i'm going to defend monuments to confederates this demolition for this ballroom is there any legal justification for doing construction like this professor during a shutdown especially after public assurances from the chief executive that the building would not be touched well we're carving out a theme and it leads right into the interview with with congressman lou which is the usurpation of congress's power and in the same way that there was a particular law meant to rein in the president's ability to create things like this tariff emergency supposed tariff emergency i should say there also is legislation that rains in the ability to raise private money to essentially mix in with the public good and i'd add in too that the the fundraising for the military is an example of this and certainly the ability to do what they've done which is to use this nonprofit corporation to then funnel money to pay for this public renovation of the people's house of the white house after all that you're not supposed to do this under this legislation so yes i do think it's illegal the problem is who has standing who's going to bring the case and most of all he's moved so quickly as authoritarians often do how do we correct this so we're going to ask him to or require that he rebuild the east wing the way that it was before so it's one of these circumstances where you just have to say yes it's illegal but wow he is going to get away with it and that's an unfortunate fact and i think courts you know they could assess damages there are things they can do but it's going to be too late i mean but but beyond legality what is the constitutional symbolism here a president building a private ballroom for wealthy people while citizens go hungry i mean what does this say to history about accountability in an imperial presidency it is a symbol as you know i've been talking about this as a self coup and destruction of congress's power and part of it is in the legal details but the symbol is just so powerful here and many of our viewer our listeners and viewers have seen him pull down this historic east wing this is after all where elinor roosevelt was crafting things like the existence of international human rights and there is no respect for history there is no respect for the modesty of the office that this white house is supposed to convey we i think for a reason don't have gaudy ballrooms or gold decked rooms everywhere the way he's trying to do in the old office we do now at least we know when he leaves he'll take all the gold crap with him right kory i hope so i mean we the people paid for that gold gaudy crap you know he's taking it with him when he leaves like it's a bunch of classified documents in a box yeah and let me just add to what you said it's partly that we're going to continue to pay for the maintenance of this trump creation and it's partly the the symbolism but it also is literally that people's house is owned by the the united states and so what he's doing is imagine somebody coming into your house and saying you know what i don't really like the way that you've decorated i'm gonna bring a bunch of gaudy materials in and i'm gonna rebuild your living room in a way you might like it the way that you have it it might convey a certain kind of modesty no i want it to be ostentatious on the way you know i just think it's a matter of right that he's imposing his as you say imperial presidency monarchy aesthetic over the people's democratic way of seeing what this house is supposed to look like we gotta take a quick break but we'll be right back don't go away there's a lot more of the oath in the office hey all clinkershner 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 in the office i'm john fugl saying let's talk about cbs professor less than a year after taking over the anchor seat on cbs evening news john dickerson who i think is just a terrific broadcaster and journalist is leaving the broadcast and leaving cbs after 16 years and now apparently cbs's face the nation has been rebranded uh it's now face the narrative this week margaret brennan under new management from editor-in-chief barry weiss tried to play gotcha with akim jeffreys for using the phrase rigged elections because you know quarry when when trump says rigged he's plotting a coup when akim jeffreys says rigged he's describing a literal plot dictated by trump to illegally gerrymandered districts in the middle of a decade one year ahead of the midterms it's a very subtle difference trump lied and had cops beaten in a terror attack on the capital and called it rigged which it wasn't and democrats call it a rigged election when trump tells republican governors to rig an election i mean he told greg abbott give me five more house seats and so here's the clip of margaret brennan this has caused a lot of outrage essentially uh both sides in it take it margaret i want to ask you about something you said you said democrats there are no election deniers on our side of the aisle you said that back in january but recently you've been using the term rigged elections in reference to the upcoming midterms democrats were appalled when president trump used language like that how do you justify using that now doesn't that undermine faith for voters you need to show up no i've been using that term in the context of donald trump's unprecedented effort to gerrymandered congressional maps in a partisan fashion all across the country in order to rig the midterm elections and deny the ability of the american people to actually decide who should be in the majority as it relates to the house you know democrats are also going through through gerrymandering and redistricting no no no well democrats are going to push back aggressively to make sure that we have fair maps across the country not partisan gerrymandering which republicans have initiated in state after state after state korey from a constitutional scholar's perspective what's the danger in media normalizing that kind of false equivalence well i just think you know we're talking about a threat to democracy and what january sixth was and the election denialism was not just a constitutional crisis it was an attempted coup and i sometimes talk about elements of the soft coup that are going on now where we're destroying the powers of other branches for instance in the destruction of the east wing in the terrorist case but there also was an attempted hard coup a violent insurrection at the capital and what went with that and what fed that was election denialism based in nothing uh not in any truth no court of course uh upheld any of those claims so for cbs which uh did such a good job of holding trump to account in the first term to come and say that really that's the same as gerrymandering a factual thing that is happening is really a threat to democracy we've seen attacks on universities we've seen attacks on law firms and now we are seeing it on the media and putting in their own person very wise to create this false equivalence we can't trust cbs anymore i i really was blown away by the way that this interview reflected uh trump's own victory and framing this way isn't just dangerous for the issue it's dangerous for the entire stability of american democracy she she did that whole thing don't you think saying rigged undermines faith and democracy margaret brennan democracy doesn't lose faith when we call out cheating democracy loses faith when journalists won't call out cheating i mean i mean this isn't gerrymandering the democrats are countermandering cori republicans draw these maps that look like spilled spaghetti having a seizure democrats are trying to bring electoral district balance back to the force and suddenly it's both sides it's like it's like if tina slapped ike back one time and cbs is saying look both sides do it i mean gerrymandering undermines one person one vote which the supreme court recognized as a constitutional principle so shouldn't the press be treating that as a threat to democracy not as a partisan both sides squabble i think you're seeing from cbs is an extreme version of what not to do in uh midst of a self coup and that's to say oh journalists are supposed to be neutral and what neutral means is both sides and you saw her do that the response to that is no journalists are supposed to call out facts they're supposed to report on what's actually happening and what and just in case anybody has any doubt what actually happened on january 6 was that there is an attempt to destroy democracy through a lie and the lie was election denialism when it comes to gerrymandering which of course we've talked about extensively including on our previous episode that is also a fact that is happening that's not being mean or or degrading the truth that is actually a fact and to to have cbs not seeing the difference between truth and this fake neutrality is really a dangerous moment and it frankly it makes independent media like our own podcast all the more important yeah i mean if the corporate media is going to be doing this kind of framing that's just going to muddy the waters of the public's understanding of what's genuinely constitutional versus what is illegal and deeply authoritarian and evil we got to take a quick break back in a moment with our good friend congressman ted lou this is the oath in the office hey i'm john fugelsang do you ever watch these christian nationalists and right-wing fundamentalists on tv and think jesus christ these people are the opposite of jesus christ you know christianity was supposed to be about love and service but millions of americans have grown up to find their nice religions been hijacked by this mean authoritarian tax-free click i wrote a book about how these right-wingers aren't actually on the side of jesus and historically they never have been separation of church and hate a sane person's guide to taking back the bible from fundamentalist fascists and flock-leasing frauds it's a very irreverent and biblically correct book for believers atheists agnostics and anybody who's ever going to have to deal with a christian extremist in your family workplace or government on all the issues that divide us using actual verses from that book they claim to follow they've got a first amendment right to twist the bibles of their liking you've got a first amendment right to call them out for it and you'll be surprised at how good it feels welcome back to the oath in the office i'm john fugelsang professor brechnider we've had some great guests on the show i'm really excited about this guy what a pleasure to welcome congressman ted lu from california he's represented the california's 36 congressional district since 2023 and represented the 33rd congressional district from 2015 to 2023 and the reason why as listeners know and i said a little bit about this in the first segment that i'm so excited to have congressman lu who's trained as a lawyer i should say is because it's so essential in this moment that congress reclaim its own powers and i really have trouble thinking of any member of congress who's really fought that fight as hard as congressman lu understanding what powers the constitution gives to the congress and then working in a creative way to reclaim those powers so congressman lu welcome to the oath in the office podcast thank you cori and john it's an honor to be on your show i just want to say i spent much of this year on the floor of the house representatives so i just want to say how happy i am to now be able to speak with normal rational kind people thank you so much we'll get into some of the dysfunction and i do of course want to talk about things like the shutdown and a lot of what's happening now but i wanted to change the pace a little bit by asking you about a bill that you've been a sponsor of and i know i've been involved with because i think it really goes to the question of hope part of what our listeners want to hear is how congress can reclaim our democracy from a president who threatens it and one area in which you played a role in making that happen is in the important reclaiming of the war powers so i'd like to hear more generally about how to reclaim the power of congress after all to declare war and also your first strike bill which recognizes the danger of nuclear war and the danger of a first strike by a president who might illegally initiate it yes i want to ask you about the specifics and also about the general i will say too i in preparation for this interview watched on netflix this frightening film that's now number one i think on netflix about precisely the danger that this bill is meant to counter over the years under both republican democratic administrations the presidency has gotten more powerful now when you don't have an overtly malicious president that may be okay but we've got an overtly malicious president and you see the dangers of having too much power concentrated in just one person so i do believe that we're going to have a democratic president in three years and my hope is the next president will voluntarily sign laws that are going to reduce the power of the presidency and restore congress to where the founders had envisioned the balance of powers to be so one of these areas is the power to declare war if you look at the way our constitution is framed at that time congress was created along with the judiciary basically as a check on the president's powers and then the founders gave congress the greatest power that they knew at that time the power to declare war and in my view there's no way the framers of the constitution would have given one person the ability to launch thousands of nuclear weapons and kill hundreds of millions of people in less than an hour and not have called that war and if you look at the constitution it's very clear because only congress can declare war it's clear to me that the president of the united states cannot by himself initiate a premeditated nuclear first strike so senator edmark and i have introduced legislation over the years to essentially say a president can only launch a nuclear first strike with congressional approval so important i mean the idea of course as as you say that congress has the power to declare war means to initiate a war and the launch of a first strike of nuclear weapons has to be the declaration of war because there is no such thing as a limited use of of nuclear weapons exactly as you say i did want to follow up on your important point which is realistically we're not going to get legislation like this signed by donald trump he's trying to acquire as much power as possible and is going to resist any of congress's efforts i mean what happened during the biden presidency that a lot of these constitutional reforms didn't go through was it that biden was just more focused on the economy and other issues i mean talk about that moment that we had where a bill like this which i think is among the most important pending in congress didn't succeed in becoming law it turns out that if you look at the laws congress has passed and a number of them we were put in essentially provisions that say hey if the president declares an emergency then all of a sudden the president can do this this or that right then we never really thought we'd have an overtly malicious president like we do now so for example with tariffs it is traditionally a province of congress but there is a provision in there basically says well if the executive declares a emergency then the executive gets to do tariffs and so you have these provisions all over the place in our federal laws and i think one of the things we need to do when we flip the house and then when we get a trifecta also in three years is to close all these loopholes and say okay now that we understand that we might get another overtly malicious president some point in the future how do you write these laws so that we don't have a repeat of what donald trump is doing right now so i think it's a more structural problem because congress has always traditionally thought well we probably should put in these things in case there is an emergency but now we realize oh what if a bad president exploits those provisions and that's what we're faced with right now congressman lew that's why i'm so inspired by this bill and i think it actually is the sort of thing that that our conservative brothers and sisters could be persuaded by i think the bill is actually quite conservative going by the dictionary definition of that word i mean a bill to prohibit presidents from using first strike nuclear weapons without congressional approval totally challenges this whole imperial presidency it fits into the separation of powers for so many decades we've accepted in this country that presidents have this near unilateral control over nuclear launch decisions i mean do you think reclaiming that power for congress is both constitutional and politically realistic because i do believe conservatives could be persuaded by this you're absolutely correct in fact they were when we first introduced this we actually introduced it when president obama was president and everyone thought that was to be the next president so this was never done as an anti-trump piece of nation it was done because senate markey and i and many others simply believed that it was unconstitutional for the president to be able to kill hundreds of millions of people not have called that war and we had republican co-authors i believe we'll get republican co-authors again once donald trump is no longer president because you mean once there's a democratic president that we can limit the powers of they'll get behind it also they'll know they're no longer going to fear donald trump right now there are lots of things that republican members of congress and senators would do but they don't do because of their fear of donald trump and so once that goes away i think a lot of them are going to become hopefully much more normal people than they are now congressman i've asked you this before sorry kori but i gotta ask here in the second trump term do your do your republican colleagues confide in you i mean are insane moments in the hallways are they capable of acknowledging that they are hostages to this creature with no impulse control they don't really talk about it but it's very clear to me if you just look at their past statements on a number of issues and their present statements it's 180 degrees different i mean yes sir republicans have usually been anti-tariff for example right and now we have sort of the situation where their leader of their party is doing these tariffs or increasing costs on a whole bunch of products across america and increasing inflation and you just have republicans either being silent or just tassily going along with it yeah i think by the way the idea that we would use a democratic presidency to restrain a democratic president might be our only hope to look out for a future what want to be authoritarian like the great point dealing with now so i think that's exactly the right strategy to push for it when we have the opportunity and laws like the ethics and government act which created the independent council were signed by carter after all by democrats so that's a tradition that i think i just completely applaud the other historical facts that we have i remember when we had this briefing by professor david co of george hong university he was also the former legal director of the aclu for nearly a decade and he said something interesting he said with abuse comes reform and so after nixon and watergate the incoming congress that came in passed a series of reforms clearly they didn't do enough but that did happen so i do think you're going to see something similar because the american people now realize oh we need to tighten up a lot of these loopholes that a malicious president has been exploiting now and could exploit in the future yeah and in fact we we were earlier talking about that period in which for instance the national emergencies act and to my mind the aipa law limiting international emergencies economic emergencies all of those were meant as constraints but as you say they've just been lost over time so they need to be at minimum short up and we need to go beyond that and on that theme of going beyond it i want to ask you about one of the most frightening issues of the day that of course you're monitoring closely and thinking about and that's the use of the military domestically in places like uh los angeles and chicago i mean what what can we do here to fight back against this abuse of power we have the posse comatotus act but of course you might invoke the insurrection act an exception to the posse comatotus act tell us uh you know give us some hope here too like what might we in a future congress due to fight back and if you see strategies that we can use now against this really horrific abuse exactly what the framers feared the use of the military to shut down civil liberties uh tell us your thoughts please i serve an act of duty uh in the air force for four years and then i serve in the reserves for additional 21 years it's very clear to me the u.s military uh was not trained to be deployed on americans and the posse comatotus act essentially says the president is not supposed to deploy them on americans and unfortunately this president has been in my view violating the law federal district judges have said so the pellet courts are split and we'll see what happens when this case gets a supreme court this is another area we're going to have to tighten in terms of the laws as we go forward and the silver lining to this is if you see what happened in los angeles when he deployed a national guard i was on a meeting at the time about 2000 national guard troops were federally activated and i remember the california national guard commander basically saying something effective well 7100 of them on standby meaning they literally were doing nothing and then of the 300 that were doing something they were just sort of standing around at federal buildings uh so the people la just largely ignored them and then after a few weeks they left because there's literally nothing for them to do that's right that's right and so i think you're gonna see a lot of these instances and here in dc right you have all these national guard troops deployed and um first of all it's a great gig for them they're like you know these cool places by restaurants they're at union station they're walking around and literally nothing is happening right there's separated from their families separated from their businesses and their jobs yeah well they're that that is not great but in terms of the actual mission they're just walking around and so the people here just sort of ignore them and so people see this what it is it's a political stunt right you don't have um you know as the president says sort of a war zone in portland even the federal judges they've all looked at it acknowledge that that's that's just crazy that that is not what's happening in portland in fact what you have are these characters and big fluffy animals making fun of the folks who are deployed yeah i'm sorry i feel so comfortable in saying the troops in dc wearing camouflage to blend in with dc's architecture and especially the ones doing yard work wearing camouflage with orange reflective vests over their camouflage to me that's the perfect symbol for the the thought that went into all this but i'd love to ask you congressman with respect to your service in the congress and in the u.s military right now the uss gerald r4 the world's largest aircraft carrier is steaming toward the caribbean because apparently we need 90 fighter jets and 10 000 troops to stop a couple of speedboats full of cocaine the president is openly threatening to invade venezuela now a year ago he was saying we should have taken their royal but now he's saying it's about drugs of course it's not venezuela has the largest proven reserves in the world 303 billion barrels bigger than saudi arabia congressman lou they're claiming this is a war on cocaine and fentanyl we've seen this in the past with america you drill it we kill it it seems this is a lot like what happened when iran tried to nationalize their royal in the 50s and america was not about to let that happen are you are you sir personally concerned after all these years of republicans claiming to be the anti-war party we really learned our lessons from iraq we're so anti-war now we won't criticize putin and we'll blow up boats and we'll bomb iran but we really are anti-war and and now congressman i'm terrified that fentanyl is about to be the new wmd the pretense for a war of choice for oil i'm deeply concerned these strikes on these boats appear to me to violate the law of armed conflict i actually taught the law of armed conflict as a jag to activity personnel now the only caveat i would have is i'm doing this based on media reports and reading but we have no freaking idea what the actual details were related to these strikes because the republican house has been on vacation for five weeks doing the republican government shutdown so we've had no oversight hearings we have no classified briefings and so i actually couldn't tell you what the legal justification is that the administration is using or what facts they have that could justify these strikes and so it is completely a dereliction of duty for house republicans to not convene at all and be on vacation during this shutdown and part of me wonders is it really because they just don't want to swer in congresswoman elect adelaide brahava well there's that too yeah signature on discharge petition to force a vote on the obscene files could it really be that because it is crazy for the republicans to be on vacation during a republican shutdown yeah and it's a way i guess of ensuring there isn't transparency i want to ask you more about the shutdown but i did want to finish on this really important theme uh that you're talking about and have taken a lead of of the kind of legislation that could restrain a future want to be authoritarian president i mean tell me what kind of laws might we pass to ensure that there isn't killing without due process of what looks to be a good possibility anyway aren't drug smugglers but might be for instance migrants might be vulnerable people what can we do i'll add to into the conversation that although the military in many ways has been a stunt the deployment so far of course it could turn serious but when it comes to ice and ice agents mass rounding people up the videos that we're seeing are quite frightening so what in these areas are areas that if not in the next year maybe if the democratic party retakes congress that we might see or at least in a future democratic administration what what might we do in those areas to rectify this really not just threat to democracy but abuse of power and human rights you had asked what had happened sort of last four years so when trump tried to overturn uh their election and try to get mike pence to basically do these stupid things to overturn election we did in fact pass a law basically saying look any sort of loopholes that might possibly be in our laws that allowed the vice president of the united states to overturn election we're going to close those so that in fact did happen and so congress sort of reacted to a very specific thing that donald trump in his first term i tried what we have to do now because what the second trump administration is they're looking at like every single provision in there that gives the president any sort of discretion and there's and then just expanding it to all sorts of things that give the president more power so we have to look at everything where there's expansive language and just tighten it all so for example the president essentially had the administration designate a number of drug cartels as terrorists in terrorist organizations and you may remember during the obama administration prez obama basically used drones and killed terrorists yeah so the issue here is well our drug cartels terrorist organizations i think not but when you read the law it's pretty expansive and so the fact that they've done that now sort of gives them some sort of legal justification to then strike drug cartels as terrorist organizations we're just gonna have to tighten that up and either make the determination to say look we're gonna call terrorism what it actually is or should be or we're just gonna let the president doesn't whoever he or she feels like doesn't a thing as a terrorist i don't think that is necessarily the right way to go yeah these broad delegations i think that's got to be part of the thought of congress is really saying to the president no we're giving you specific authorities but not not all authority and and it's lesson of the last well year and the previous trump term has taught us that no we can't trust a president we can't assume the president's going to be a person of virtue you might have a bad president as patrick henry warned or even a criminal president is the phrase that patrick henry the founding warned about i wanted to ask about the shutdown and i'm sure john wants to jump into this too you know there's different arguments about it i mean how do you see it especially i'm interested for the purposes of our listeners in the podcast as part of the fight for democracy one worry is that he's going to use the shutdown to carry out firings and hollow out essential parts of the of the federal government and the executive branch that are charged with carrying out the laws that are in the books that are passed by congress but yet i take it that you see this as a unnecessary maneuver in in resisting what would have been devastating cuts to areas like health care so i mean tell us your thoughts about this current shutdown and how to think about it strategically in the wider fight for democracy donald trump doesn't have to use a shutdown to fire federal workers he's been doing that this entire year i never understood the argument that the shutdown gives him any more powers because it doesn't he dismantled us a id without a shutdown he dismantled the department education without a shutdown so it is just simply not a valid argument that somehow this shutdown allows him to do more it doesn't he has been doing all sorts of things without a shutdown now it's structurally just a fact that republicans control the white house the senate and the house so this shutdown is on them it's a republican shutdown and democrats are fighting to basically lower costs to cancel the cuts and to save health care for americans in november americans are going to see their premiums rise anyone who's on the poor bro carat millions and millions of people are going to see their premiums rise and then the republican assault on health care isn't just on the aca it's also on deep deep cuts to medicade and also they've got a final billion cuts slated for medicare and what happens when lots of people lose health insurance everybody's health insurance premiums then go up because guess what people who get sick still get treated who have no health insurance because they go to the emergency room and that that compensated care those costs get passed everybody else who has health care yeah i mean it's amazing seeing that it's so dire margaret taylor green is telling the truth about obama care hurting red state voters while we've got rand paul telling the truth about the u.s. murdering people in boats and mark wane mullen telling the truth about tariffs hurting americans and thomas massie telling the truth about trump covering for pedophiles it almost seems like some of these republicans realize the political landscape is going to be very different come post november of next year congressman but i want to ask you when you know the oath in the office is the name of this podcast and and as you know that's not just about it's about what the president squares to uphold right not personal loyalty not power but the constitution so when you look congressman lewitt just this week's events this white house demolition the this trade war over a ronald reagan clip in a tv ad these attacks on free speech this 40 billion dollar bailout to argentina while food stamps are stopping and they're trying to throw 20 million souls off medicaid are we seeing the greatest test yet of whether that oath still means anything it's pretty clear to me that oh it doesn't mean much to don old trump uh he has violated law in a number of instances he has taken actions to me that appear deeply corrupt and he lies like no one's ever seen so look the american people are smart trump supporters are smart he actually thinks they're not very smart because he just constantly lies to them and i don't know why he believes that they believe what he's saying so just on this ronald reagan issue it's just very clear ronald reagan is against tariffs so no matter how many times ronald trump says ronald reagan supports there is trump is just lying and all you have to do is just do an internet search and and i don't understand really why trump says these things that he knows the american people know he's lying but he just keeps on saying it and it's deeply concerning to me it's always been deeply concerning that the president of united states america lies at the rate that he does but the polly does show that american people are now overwhelmingly rejecting what donald trump stands for in his actions we'll see he's the last associate press poll had donald trump at 37 percent approval essentially won the lowest of any modern day president only time it's been lower with any other modern day president was trump in his first term during covid that's right if you look at elections in america every time there's a special election you have democrats over performing and so when voters can actually actualize their beliefs into action at the ballot box they end up rejecting what donald trump republicans are trying to implement yes sir i was going to ask about hope and you've already started pushing us in that direction because the american people are starting to see through the lies and to want to hold this president to account but let me follow up by that and ask you you know it's the main thing actually we're hearing from our listeners we're covering the threat to democracy we're covering the ice attacks on civil liberties the military attacks on civil liberties but we're also trying to balance that out by thinking about the oath in the sense not trump of course is is doing anything but respecting it is destroying it but to think about reviving it and and to rescue american democracy so when it comes to hope i mean what are you what do you think that we can look to and i'll ask a more specific in addition to that general question which is if the democratic party can retake the house as i hope the democratic party will because of what you're saying what do you want to see do you want to see impeachment of course trump was impeached twice in the previous administration his previous term he wasn't convicted in the senate but arguably a lot of good came from that impeachment and that we learned about the wrongdoing we learned about the desire to pressure the president solinsky of the ukraine in order to hand over dirt on his adversary right and we saw january six called out for what it was an attempted insurrection violent insurrection would you want to see impeachment if democrats could retake the house where is the hope coming from congressman i think it's harder to answer that in the abstract but what i will say is one reason that's trump administration is getting away with a lot of stuff right now is because the republican party has completely failed in their oversight responsibilities and the legislative branch of government has completely basically gone silent if there's a change in makeup of congress then what will happen is every single committee will then be chaired by democrat meaning that the hearings will be determined by democrats the agenda of the hearings will win this is called subpoena power democrats will control off and what happens when there's a lot of public pressure and oversight on a public issue well guess what the ministration in fact does respond so the administration didn't have to bring back kilmer garcia from elsel but they did now my reading of law is at some point they could probably deport him again but at least he has the ability to fight it here in the united states he has due process and that happened because there was enormous public pressure from folks across america as well as elected officials so it's hard to generate that if you don't have the gavels you don't have subpoena power you don't determine any of the floor votes or committee votes or committee hearings and if the house flips that whole situation changes yeah i mean that's what i've been saying congressman my fervent belief is that the democrats who promise accountability who promise hands on bibles in front of cameras for cabinet members for hearings that they are the democrats who are not just going to arouse the most passion but are going to do the best in the fundraising derby i mean do you get that sense that the people don't want revenge but the people are very ready for democrats to promise accountability i kind of feel like the democrats who come out and say okay republicans you got 13 more months go ahead and be as lawless as you want there's going to be a new sheriff in town january 2027 that's the spirit i'm getting from our listeners that that's the kind of democrats that people are excited to go out and campaign for is that the vibe you're feeling inside the capital so it is clear to me that the american people want accountability if you look at the polling the number one issue still is the economy and inflation and under the trump administration inflation has continued to increase beef prices or the highest that they ever been energy prices continue to sky rocket and you've got trump republican policies making things worse so you've got the trump administration canceling energy projects because they happen to be clean or because they're green and that's just going to reduce supply which increases energy prices and then you've got these tariffs there are increasing prices for american consumers and so for a lot of people they're having even more trouble making ends meet under the trump economy and so that still does remain the number one issue and one of the secondary issues is healthcare people are really concerned about the healthcare premiums rising as well yeah and i'll just share a thought on that too which is i think one of the things that somebody like you is so well positioned to do is to show the american people that the pocketbook issues like inflation are tied to the constitutional issues because of course inflation is partly the result of these unilateral and illegal tariffs that trump is imposing so i guess that will be a challenge in this campaign i'll ask a final question about oversight because i do think that throughout american history congress's role in just shining a light on the executive branch has been so important and the abandonment in the last year of that has been a disaster exactly as you say but what might we do as we uncover things so for instance one of the things that you might uncover as you look at the destruction of these boats and international waters without any due process is is criminal intent in the garcia case which we've covered at length it looks like there was an order by a justice department now now judge to disregard court orders so the president of course has criminal immunity under trump versus the united states at least for official acts even after he's president that's a game changer in my opinion we can no longer say oh the courts will hold this president to account i mean are you open to the possibility of impeachment in the instance in which we do find serious violations not just of abuse of power but of the criminal law well again it's hard to answer that question in the abstract i do know that people who are not the president don't have such a community right nice nice you know there is right no such defense as you know i quote an unlawful and legal order if you follow an unlawful and illegal order you can still be prosecuted right i'm not sure they're aware of that but maybe that is something we shouldn't be them aware of the way they speak sometimes i think that memo hasn't gotten to them that presidential immunity doesn't carry over to the staff right congressman it is such a pleasure and honor for you to join us thank you so much for taking the time i hope that you're feeling hope right now i'm wondering if you are i am and so let me end on some words of hope when i started active duty my first training base was max welfare force base in montgomery alabama there was a beautiful roza parks museum there i've had an opportunity to visit it a number of times the last time was with the late amazing john lewis and i remember finishing the museum again and then sitting there thinking you know roza parks will not have been surprised by president donald trump yeah her life was full of injustice but she never could have imagined president barack obama winning the presidency twice she never could have imagined vice president kamala harris and she never could have imagined a speaker hooking jeffreys which is what's going to right next term thank you so much congressman ted lou for this amazing discussion partly about how we might reform our laws to recapture the constitutional limits on the presidency what we might do in the near term to hold this president to account and of course for providing some hope that this fight for democracy will prevail thank you so much what a pleasure i hope you'll join us again thank you again it's been an honor to have you on the earth in the office congressman ted lou thank you so much honor be on your show well that's a pretty packed episode kory thanks again to congressman ted lou for joining us and uh kory how can our listeners follow you when they're when they're not reviewing us and and subscribing and telling everybody to join the podcast how do we keep up with you the rest of the week wow we really are well over 400 reviews all five stars five stars from hundreds of reviews is unusual i'm told we have an oath in the office sub stack you can find us also on youtube or if you're listening and watching on youtube you can find us wherever you get your audio podcast and i just have to say a final word john about this show you know we talked a lot about how to reclaim the powers of congress and you heard congressman lou talk in specifics about how to do that so you know that really is hope for me you know there's a question about how good our laws are i think in this tariff case they're pretty good but regardless of how good they are he's really spoke to a core idea of this podcast which is that we have to get specific in the way we rewrite our legislation in war powers in tariffs in the use of the military domestically and when we do so we really can save our democracy i want to thank you kory and congressman ted lou and thanks to wendy and baowulf and everyone who puts the show together and most of all thank you our listener please be sure to subscribe and give us a good review and tell your friends and all the fun stuff and we will see you next time on the oath in the office