Speaker 1: In all the excitement over the Israeli airstrikes against Iran,
Speaker 1: some stuff got lost in the shuffle, which is the
Speaker 1: ongoing court fight between Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom over
Speaker 1: whether Donald Trump can federalize the California National Guard to
Speaker 1: protect federal assets and federal law enforcement operating in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to talk today about sort of the
Speaker 1: politics of this, which I think I might write about.
Speaker 1: I've got some in the works to submit to National
Speaker 1: Review about it. But I also want to talk about
Speaker 1: the legal side of it, because it really is touching
Speaker 1: on this massive problem. This is a big problem for
Speaker 1: American governance in general, and it's become this hugely outsized
Speaker 1: problem during both of the Trump administrations. Rule by judges,
Speaker 1: where judges feel they have the ability to jump in
Speaker 1: on questions where I think it's more than arguable that
Speaker 1: it's not really areas that are subject to their review
Speaker 1: that the framers would not have viewed as subject to
Speaker 1: their review. I think one of the arguments about the
Speaker 1: Abrego Garcia case, well, not really the Obrego Garcia case,
Speaker 1: but the categorization of the large group of Venezuelans as
Speaker 1: using the alien enemies Act to deport a bunch of
Speaker 1: these Venezuelans. Is when that statue was drafted in the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century, it was before the concept of judicial review
Speaker 1: was even really very firmly established within the American courts.
Speaker 1: And basically, the Alien Enemies Act it gave the president
Speaker 1: power during war time or well in the event of
Speaker 1: an invasion or a predatory incursion or and there's specific
Speaker 1: language in the statute that I don't want to gloss over,
Speaker 1: YadA YadA, through it gives the president certain power to
Speaker 1: deport certain people. And we're trying to fit that eighteenth
Speaker 1: century statute into the modern do process system saying, well,
Speaker 1: you know, these people need to have a hearing, and
Speaker 1: they need to have and I there's a part of
Speaker 1: me that's sort of agreeing in general, like if someone
Speaker 1: so the president can designate someone as an alien enemy
Speaker 1: and then they get deported out of the country and
Speaker 1: they have no opportunity for a hearing or for a review,
Speaker 1: like to determine whether they actually are an alien enemy.
Speaker 1: You know what if the president just does that to
Speaker 1: someone who's a citizen, like, do they have no recourse?
Speaker 1: And the problem is do they have no recourse? Well,
Speaker 1: maybe the recourse is something other than judicial, Maybe it's
Speaker 1: something other than the courts. Maybe the recourse has to
Speaker 1: be ultimately something that is political. Not every problem in
Speaker 1: politics is resolved by appeal to the courts. We accept
Speaker 1: this in the context of things like impeachment. Okay, if
Speaker 1: Congress impeaches a president, he's just impeached. He can't appeal
Speaker 1: it to the courts. The courts are not the venue
Speaker 1: for deciding it. It's a political question. I think when
Speaker 1: it comes to core presidential powers defined for the president
Speaker 1: under Article two, the courts are just not an appropriate
Speaker 1: venue for disputing the legitimacy of what the president is
Speaker 1: doing and politics, the pressure of politics, of political accountability
Speaker 1: has to be the appropriate forum for checking what a
Speaker 1: president does. I mean, we had over the course of
Speaker 1: like twenty four hours yesterday, Judge Charles Bryer, the brother
Speaker 1: of former of retired Supreme Court Justice Briar, Stephen Bryer.
Speaker 1: This is a federal judge who's the brother of a
Speaker 1: very liberal former Supreme Court justice. So this will this
Speaker 1: is Stephen Brier's brother, Judge Charles Bryant, who's a judge
Speaker 1: in a federal judge in the Northern District of California.
Speaker 1: Newsom brings his lawsuit to challenge Trump's activation of the
Speaker 1: California National Guard, the idea being Trump didn't activate the
Speaker 1: National Guard through means of the governor. Ordinarily, the National
Speaker 1: Guard is responsive to that individual state's governor unless he
Speaker 1: is activated by the President ordering the National Guard to
Speaker 1: work through the governor. Now, the problem is, what is
Speaker 1: the significance of the statutory language requiring that the president
Speaker 1: activate a national Guard unit through that state's governor. The
Speaker 1: governor doesn't have veto power over the president's action there.
Speaker 1: The President doesn't need to ask the governor for permission,
Speaker 1: And presidents have activated national Guard units in direct defiance
Speaker 1: of governors in the past. For example, I think President
Speaker 1: Kennedy did that against the wishes of the governor of
Speaker 1: Alabama to start integrating schools in Alabama. So the president
Speaker 1: clearly controls here. And what did you have, Well, you
Speaker 1: had this bizarre spectacle over the course of the day
Speaker 1: yesterday that you have this hearing Judge Brier gets Judge Bryer,
Speaker 1: clearly a huge left winger, starts talking about it, gets
Speaker 1: into this rhetoric. In the course of the oral arguments
Speaker 1: and during the hearing talking about the president acting like
Speaker 1: he's a king, which is just the standard textbook liberal
Speaker 1: you know, talking point right now, and he rules in
Speaker 1: favor of California and so that well, the President didn't
Speaker 1: order him to do it through the governor, and he
Speaker 1: got all hung up on that. And so here is
Speaker 1: the president wanting to stop a riot that is rioting
Speaker 1: that is specifically aimed at disrupting federal law enforcement from
Speaker 1: doing its job. He wants to activate the National Guard
Speaker 1: to protect federal assets. This is clearly within the scope
Speaker 1: of his power. He's telling the military what to do,
Speaker 1: and a federal judge is stopping him. We are like, honestly,
Speaker 1: there's the joke that people have said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: imagine we're in It's it's World War two and General
Speaker 1: Eisenhower tells Patten to move in over here, and a
Speaker 1: federal judge from the d C Circuit, from you know,
Speaker 1: the DC District Court says, hang on, is it quite
Speaker 1: legal for General Patten to move, you know, from Normandy
Speaker 1: into the Battle of the bult That's the level we're
Speaker 1: talking about, Like, should federal judges be interfering in like
Speaker 1: the president ordering generals what to do moving military units. No,
Speaker 1: judges don't involve themselves in that. I mean, let's think
Speaker 1: of I can the thing of a more plausible scenario
Speaker 1: if you think I'm gonna being far fetched, all right?
Speaker 1: In the first Trump administration, the US government initiated a
Speaker 1: targeted strike to kill Iranian the Iranian general Sulamani. What
Speaker 1: if they were initiating it and somehow word got out
Speaker 1: and someone tried to someone within the military, liberal within
Speaker 1: the military tried to file a lawsuit in the DC
Speaker 1: District Court to say this order has been initiated. I
Speaker 1: think it's I think this is an unlawful air strike, though,
Speaker 1: because Iran has not, you know, attack the United States
Speaker 1: and it's not within the president's scope of his power
Speaker 1: to attack the bl blah blah blah blah blah. Maybe
Speaker 1: you can make some legal case that this is an
Speaker 1: air strike that would require an authorized use to military
Speaker 1: force to be passed by Congress first, that this particular
Speaker 1: air strike is not authorized, that it's not clearly within
Speaker 1: the scope of the authorized used to military force that
Speaker 1: was passed blah blah for the Global War on Terror
Speaker 1: or blah blah blah, blah blah. Is the president going
Speaker 1: to have to Look? You may think that a strike
Speaker 1: like that is fair or unfair. I think it's really
Speaker 1: dangerous to start giving judges any role over deciding whether
Speaker 1: or not the deployment of anything military is a good idea.
Speaker 1: That shouldn't be up to that it should That is
Speaker 1: a question ultimately of politics, the people deciding if they
Speaker 1: want to go to war. I just think you're getting
Speaker 1: into this incredibly dangerous territory if judges are telling the
Speaker 1: president what to do with the military. Now, over the
Speaker 1: course of yesterday you had again, this is Judge Charles
Speaker 1: Bryer from the Northern District of California, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: this was another classic bit of ridiculous liberal forum shopping.
Speaker 1: Here are these riots happening in Los Angeles. Where does
Speaker 1: GAVENUWSM file the lawsuit to challenge this or I guess,
Speaker 1: Rob Bonta, where do they file the lawsuit to challenge
Speaker 1: President Trump activating the National Guard? They don't do it
Speaker 1: in LA. Why Well, because the various district courts sort
Speaker 1: of centered around the LA area, like the Central District
Speaker 1: of California, et cetera. They have a lot of Republican
Speaker 1: appointee judges, so Newsome slash Rob Bonta, they bring the
Speaker 1: legal challenge where in the Northern District of California, which
Speaker 1: is based in San Francisco, where the riots are not happening,
Speaker 1: They bring it in the Northern District California. Why because
Speaker 1: all of the judges in the Northern District of California
Speaker 1: are Democrat appointees. So it was ridiculous little you know,
Speaker 1: forum shopping that if a Republican tried something like that,
Speaker 1: everyone would be, oh, this is really very troubling. This
Speaker 1: is a troubling manipulation of the legal system to attain
Speaker 1: a desired outfit, a desired outcome, this kind of blatant,
Speaker 1: forum blatant, politicized forum shopping. This is very concerning, and
Speaker 1: no one will care when a Democrat does it. And
Speaker 1: that this is the utter hypocrisy of most left wing
Speaker 1: law professors is they genuinely do not care if Democrats
Speaker 1: do stuff like this, and they will only care about
Speaker 1: the problem of, you know, one federal district court judge
Speaker 1: shutting down a nationwide policy. They will care about that
Speaker 1: if a Republican judge dares do that to a Democrat president,
Speaker 1: but they absolutely do not care about it in the
Speaker 1: context of Democrat appointed judges doing this to a Republican president.
Speaker 1: So Charles Bryer issues this temporary restraining order, which is
Speaker 1: an extraordinary I mean, so you have to issue a
Speaker 1: temporary restraining order is a very extraordinarily high bar that
Speaker 1: has to be met, which I think it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to say that avenusom met that bar. The judge grants
Speaker 1: it and immediately his grant of a tro is stopped.
Speaker 1: An administrative stay is granted to his tro by the
Speaker 1: Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a pan of the Ninth
Speaker 1: Circuit Court of Appeals. So the way that works is
Speaker 1: this is the Federal District Court says, yes, President Trump,
Speaker 1: you have to stop with your activation of the California
Speaker 1: National Guard. The Ninth Circuit jumps in, it's appealed to
Speaker 1: the Ninth Circuit and they immediately stay that TRORO. So
Speaker 1: thankfully the Trump administration got a good panel on the
Speaker 1: Ninth Circuit. So basically, the way this works is when
Speaker 1: you have a case decided at the federal District court level,
Speaker 1: it gets appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Speaker 1: But The thing is the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
Speaker 1: has like thirty judges on it. It's this enormous court
Speaker 1: and not it. You don't have it where all of
Speaker 1: the judges on the Ninth Circuit are all hearing the case.
Speaker 1: You get a randomly assigned panel of three judges to
Speaker 1: hear the appeal. And so there are three judges. Judge
Speaker 1: panel was judges Bennett, Miller, and Sung. Bennett and Miller,
Speaker 1: thankfully are both Trump appointees. Sung is I believe a
Speaker 1: Biden appointee. But nonetheless, and it doesn't sound like Sung
Speaker 1: dissented from this the Circuit Court. I'll just read from
Speaker 1: their order. The court has released has received the government's
Speaker 1: emergency motion for stay pending appeal. The request for an
Speaker 1: administrative stay is granted. So at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: the Ninth Circuit came in corrected what the rogue District
Speaker 1: Court judge did. But when we return, I just want
Speaker 1: to talk about the uncertainty that this all yields and
Speaker 1: the overconfidence in the courts that people both left and
Speaker 1: right seem to have. That's next on the Johns Already show.
Speaker 1: So over the course of the day yesterday, Gavin Newsome
Speaker 1: his lawsuit to stop President Trump's activation of the California
Speaker 1: National Guard. He wins on getting a temporary restraining order
Speaker 1: to stop Trump from activating the California National Guard, and
Speaker 1: then immediately that injunction against Trump activating the California National
Speaker 1: Guard is stayed, is stopped by the Ninth Circuit Court
Speaker 1: of Appeal. So Gavin Newsom was able to crow for
Speaker 1: victory and then oh no, no victory by the end
Speaker 1: of the day yesterday. And there are some people who
Speaker 1: would say, well, look that's the system working. You know, yes,
Speaker 1: you know, the district court judge gave a bad ruling,
Speaker 1: rogue federal judge, but you know, the Ninth Circuit stepped
Speaker 1: in and did the right thing. So that's fine, and
Speaker 1: the president's Article two powers were vindicated, so it's good.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's good. And this is kind of
Speaker 1: the point I made, one of the one of the
Speaker 1: points I made in the first segment, the idea. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm glad the Ninth Circuit ended up where it ended up. Yes,
Speaker 1: the President can activate the California National Guard. The California
Speaker 1: National Guard is part of the military. The president is
Speaker 1: commander in chief of the military. The governor of California
Speaker 1: is not in the chain of command, and the legal
Speaker 1: requirements for the President to activate the California National Guard
Speaker 1: through that state's governor is not. It's more of an
Speaker 1: administrative procedural thing. It's not like the governor of a
Speaker 1: state has veto power over the president's activation of the
Speaker 1: National Guard. That that's not how that works. I think
Speaker 1: the problem is courts in themselves in this. In the
Speaker 1: first place, what should have happened was the Federal District
Speaker 1: Court should have said the operation of the military operation
Speaker 1: of the National Guard is within the ambit of the
Speaker 1: of the President's Article two powers, and it's not that
Speaker 1: the courts should not intervene in this. So I'm out.
Speaker 1: It was not a question, I mean, but that's not
Speaker 1: where the judge again, this was Charles Bryer, Stephen Brier's brother,
Speaker 1: the former Supreme Court Justice. Stephen Brier's brother is also
Speaker 1: a federal judge.
Speaker 2: His analysis was, well, no, no, the president isn't a king.
Speaker 2: He can't just do whatever he wants, so the and
Speaker 2: that's horrible there people act like the president's.
Speaker 1: The king, which is the exact liberal talking point right now,
Speaker 1: Clearly Charles, This federal judge is just watching MSNBC and
Speaker 1: he's just parroting liberal talking points. This is not the
Speaker 1: system working well. The fact that the Trump administration needs
Speaker 1: to go to court to vindicate its ability to activate
Speaker 1: the military to help defend federal assets, federal law enforcement
Speaker 1: trying to do its job is insane. It's not the
Speaker 1: way the system is supposed to work. I would say
Speaker 1: Adrian Vermuil, who's a law professor at Harvard, sort of
Speaker 1: an outside the box thinker of the right, if you will.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call him a conservative thinker, but of the right.
Speaker 1: It's probably more accurate. He writes about this. If your
Speaker 1: reaction to this whole day's events is that quote the
Speaker 1: process is working, you're missing the point. Any one of
Speaker 1: almost seven hundred district judges might intervene at any time
Speaker 1: to block anything the president does, even within the core
Speaker 1: of his Article two powers. The overhang of uncertainty and
Speaker 1: confusion about where power lies in our government is toxic
Speaker 1: in itself. Binga that that's the core problem here, that
Speaker 1: individual federal district court judges are encroaching more and more
Speaker 1: into stuff that the president at the core that the
Speaker 1: president should be able to do. And it's frustrating to
Speaker 1: me that you have these conservative, sort of federalist society types,
Speaker 1: the guys writers like Ed Whalen, who who writes a
Speaker 1: National Review very often, who I respect in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, but like he starts the day he does this,
Speaker 1: like live tweeting of the hearing in which Charles Bryer
Speaker 1: issued this ruling, and he starts by saying, there's no
Speaker 1: way that Charles Brower would would grant this, because you know,
Speaker 1: this would be ridiculous and interfering in the President's Article
Speaker 1: two powers, and this would just be silly and and
Speaker 1: and of course it's exactly what Briar does. And it's
Speaker 1: this weird thing with federalist society types that like they've
Speaker 1: spent their whole lives chronicling how lawless left wing judges are,
Speaker 1: and yet they they constantly have this attitude of surprise
Speaker 1: that a judge does a left wing well because obviously
Speaker 1: that would not be the right thing to do, so
Speaker 1: therefore this federal judge wouldn't do that. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is if it's like these guys were all
Speaker 1: like hot shot superstar law students, and thus they all
Speaker 1: clerked for federal judges, So maybe they all sort of
Speaker 1: have this like outsized respect for federal judges that they're
Speaker 1: professionals who wouldn't do something silly, when like there's ample
Speaker 1: evidence that left liberal federal judges are lunatics and are
Speaker 1: hardened as much hardened political partisans as anyone in the
Speaker 1: elected branches, and that they do crazy things all the time,
Speaker 1: and in fact, that the very position of being a
Speaker 1: federal judge means never having to say you're sorry, why
Speaker 1: because you can't get fired. Like that's the thing. Federal
Speaker 1: judges develop a kind of god complex a lot of
Speaker 1: them because they can't get fired. I mean, the worst
Speaker 1: that can happen is they get overturned by the circuit
Speaker 1: court above them. Oh oh darn, Like my life has
Speaker 1: in no way been adversely affected by this. Like, federal
Speaker 1: judges have lifetime appointments, that's in Article three of the Constitution,
Speaker 1: that they serve during good behavior. It's a lifetime appointment
Speaker 1: and the only way they lose their job is if
Speaker 1: they get impeached by the House of Representatives. So, yes,
Speaker 1: an individual federal district court judge in you know, the
Speaker 1: Eastern District of California working in the federal courthouse in Fresno,
Speaker 1: is appointed by the president and can only get removed
Speaker 1: if this individual federal judge is impeached by a majority
Speaker 1: of the House of Representatives and then convicted by a
Speaker 1: two thirds majority of the United States Senate. And the
Speaker 1: only judges that that has ever happened to have been
Speaker 1: judges who are clearly taking bribes, clearly involved in serious
Speaker 1: criminal offenses. So these guys have lifetime appointments that they
Speaker 1: have no incentive to not act in a matter. If
Speaker 1: they're political partisans and they hate Donald Trump, they can
Speaker 1: what's to stop them from interfering? Someone just brings a
Speaker 1: crazy lawsuit. Oh, I don't think the presidents should be
Speaker 1: able to use them tell the military what to do. Mmm, okay,
Speaker 1: Well find some phony, blowney legal rationalization for this. And yeah,
Speaker 1: the president is enjoyed from using the military in this
Speaker 1: like we're we're there, We're we literally saw it happen yesterday.
Speaker 1: It's an insane encroachment on the president's powers. And this,
Speaker 1: I think is a real genuine constitutional crisis that we're approaching.
Speaker 1: If we get a federal judge who tells the president
Speaker 1: to not do something with the military, something really a
Speaker 1: federal court telling the president he can't do something that's
Speaker 1: really essential and really at the core of the military.
Speaker 1: Eventually the president is going to be forced, I feel,
Speaker 1: to tell a court, tell a federal judge, no, I
Speaker 1: am not complying with your ruling. That's going to be
Speaker 1: a constitutional crisis. Not the president sort of phony baloney
Speaker 1: saying he was going to comply in the whole Abrego
Speaker 1: Garcia case. That's not great, that's not great compliance with
Speaker 1: a court order, while saying that you're trying to comply
Speaker 1: with a court order. Yeah, that's not great, but that's
Speaker 1: not a constitutional crisis. That's still the president acknowledging the
Speaker 1: authority of a court. If the courts get so extreme
Speaker 1: that they're bossing the president around about military stuff, that
Speaker 1: is going to be a real shake up of our
Speaker 1: whole political process. When we return. What do I mean
Speaker 1: by constitutional crisis. Let me explain that in the next segment.
Speaker 1: This is the John Girardi Show. I keep saying this
Speaker 1: phrase constitutional crisis. If you know, if the courts keep
Speaker 1: stopping the president from doing things that are core presidential responsibilities,
Speaker 1: like we saw over the course of the day yesterday
Speaker 1: where a federal judge said that Donald Trump can't activate
Speaker 1: the California National Guard. I guess because he didn't activate
Speaker 1: it through the governor or something that the idea that
Speaker 1: the government he needs to do that or else. The
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah, even though this is something
Speaker 1: that's clearly within his core second our Article two responsibilities.
Speaker 1: Over the course of the day, basically the yeah, the
Speaker 1: district court judge say no, the president can't activate the
Speaker 1: National Guard under this circumstance, and then immediately that ruling
Speaker 1: was stayed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. And
Speaker 1: I keep saying, I think we are headed towards a
Speaker 1: constitutional crisis where the president could be forced to disobey
Speaker 1: federal judges if they encroached too much on his Article
Speaker 1: two powers. What do I mean by constitutional crisis? What
Speaker 1: does anyone mean when they're saying this, Because this phrase
Speaker 1: has been used a ton over the course of the
Speaker 1: Trump administration. A lot of the time this was used
Speaker 1: in the context of the Abrego Garcia case and some
Speaker 1: of these the case of some of the Venezuelans who
Speaker 1: were deported that you had this judge declare dramatically that
Speaker 1: the president is not allowed to deport some of these Venezuelans.
Speaker 1: And it seems as though the relevant federal agencies were
Speaker 1: taking off shortly within minutes after the judge gave that order,
Speaker 1: or that they were in the air while the judge
Speaker 1: gave the order and didn't turn around. And so the
Speaker 1: left then tried to claim the Trump administration disobeyed a
Speaker 1: federal district court judge's ruling. This is a constitutional crisis. Okay,
Speaker 1: why what does that mean? Constitutional crisis? All right? What
Speaker 1: people mean when they say constitutional crisis is that it's
Speaker 1: a disruption of the sort of settled order that we
Speaker 1: have landed upon in America with courts, the weight of
Speaker 1: their ruling and the sort of obligation that rests on
Speaker 1: goodwill of the president to obey the courts. Okay, so
Speaker 1: right now, the ordinary system of things is the president
Speaker 1: does something, if it gets legally challenged and a court
Speaker 1: tells the president you can't do that, the president obeys
Speaker 1: the court. Now, what's there to stop the president from
Speaker 1: not obeying the court? Let's think about that for a
Speaker 1: little bit. What is there to stop a president from
Speaker 1: not obeying a court order he doesn't like even a
Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruling. Something gets kicked all the way up
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court says, this policy
Speaker 1: that you've enacted is unconstitutional and you can't do it.
Speaker 1: I repeat, What is there actually to stop a president
Speaker 1: from just ignoring the Supreme Court? There's not a lot.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court doesn't have guns. The Supreme Court doesn't
Speaker 1: have a police force. They don't have an army. So
Speaker 1: if a president says is I'm not gonna do what
Speaker 1: you tell me, Supreme Court, the Supreme Court really doesn't
Speaker 1: have much ability to stop the president at like actual
Speaker 1: physical ability to stop the president. They can issue pieces
Speaker 1: of paper, but we don't have that in America. That's
Speaker 1: not how it works. Okay, the presidents don't ignore the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. What do presidents do? They obey the Supreme Court? Why?
Speaker 1: Because that is the constitutional settlement we have landed at.
Speaker 1: We landed at this settlement with judicial review and the
Speaker 1: Court's having the ability to engage in judicial review, and
Speaker 1: presidents have agreed to abide by it. But ultimately, let's
Speaker 1: remember who is you know? To follow the law. To
Speaker 1: enact the law is an executive function. You need the
Speaker 1: executive branch's job is to enforce the law. Supreme Court
Speaker 1: can't enforce its own rulings. The president has to enforce
Speaker 1: them against himself when the rulings are adverse to him.
Speaker 1: So that is the established, settled order of things, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of this area that's a bit of a
Speaker 1: it's not a total gap in the Constitution, but it's
Speaker 1: a bit of a gap that we've sort of settled.
Speaker 1: This is the historical path that we've taken to keep
Speaker 1: the current order of our constitution, the written order and
Speaker 1: the stuff that's maybe not quite explicitly written in the
Speaker 1: text of the Constitution itself. This is where we've landed,
Speaker 1: is that presidents obey rulings by federal judges. However, that
Speaker 1: settlement rests on the goodwill of the presidency. It rests
Speaker 1: on the goodwill of the president, the president sort of
Speaker 1: deciding that this is in the best interests of the country. Now,
Speaker 1: there are political pressures at play that help keep this
Speaker 1: in check. If you had a president flagrantly disobeying the
Speaker 1: courts and refusing to abide by their rulings at a
Speaker 1: certain point, it could get politically quite damaging for the president.
Speaker 1: The House would initiate impeaching. At a certain point, the
Speaker 1: House could initiate impeachment proceedings. The Senate could convict a
Speaker 1: president and remove him from office. Those are not nothing
Speaker 1: burger considerations. You know, even impeachment can really tie up
Speaker 1: and hose up a president for a long time. So
Speaker 1: it's not like there's nothing pressuring the president to follow
Speaker 1: a court order, but ultimately, at the end of the
Speaker 1: day he doesn't. It's not like there's a person with
Speaker 1: a gun at the end of the line who kind
Speaker 1: of forces you to do what the Supreme Court says.
Speaker 1: Who's gonna arrest the president if he doesn't obey the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court his own FBI. It's not gonna be a
Speaker 1: state police officer. They're not authorized for that. So that's
Speaker 1: what I mean. So when people say basically what people
Speaker 1: are saying, meaning when they say start a constitutional crisis,
Speaker 1: they mean the president's refusing to obey court orders. That's
Speaker 1: what they mean. Now, I will say, you can argue
Speaker 1: that President Trump and his administration rather behaved poorly in
Speaker 1: not following district court orders about certain kinds of deportation
Speaker 1: efforts they were doing. Again, they had the specific cases
Speaker 1: with flying people out and planes taking off minutes after
Speaker 1: the district judge gave his ruling, or planes that were
Speaker 1: in the air that didn't turn around when the district
Speaker 1: court judge gave his ruling and the question of did
Speaker 1: the Trump administration did President Trump blatantly disobey a federal
Speaker 1: court ruling? Now, I think there's a difference though, between
Speaker 1: that case in which the Trump administration is trying to argue, yes,
Speaker 1: we did follow your ruling, but here are the circumstances
Speaker 1: of it that and you can argue whether those rationalizations
Speaker 1: are bs or whether they're true. The important overriding thing, though,
Speaker 1: is that Trump administration acknowledging the authority of the court.
Speaker 1: The Trump administration is not refusing the authority of the court.
Speaker 1: They're not saying this court has no authority to tell
Speaker 1: the president what to do with deportations, and we will
Speaker 1: not and we will not listen to the court when
Speaker 1: they tell us what to do. That isn't happening. The
Speaker 1: Trump administration has not done that at any point. Right now.
Speaker 1: You can say that their compliance with court orders has
Speaker 1: been inadequate, dreadful, less than full, but they are still
Speaker 1: acknowledging the power of the court, it's not precipitating this
Speaker 1: level of genuine constitutional crisis. What I am saying is
Speaker 1: that when you have district court judges telling the president
Speaker 1: he can't do something he wants to do with regards
Speaker 1: to the military, at a certain point, you're gonna get
Speaker 1: a district court judge trying to stop the president from
Speaker 1: doing something with the military in a way that could
Speaker 1: interfere with some really key foreign policy goals, could maybe
Speaker 1: put people at risk of getting killed. And at a
Speaker 1: certain point, if this keeps up, if federal judges keep
Speaker 1: acting in this unrestrained way and they have no restraint again,
Speaker 1: you know, we talk about incentives and who's gonna stop you.
Speaker 1: Who's gonna stop these federal judges. They have lifetime appointments.
Speaker 1: Charles Bryer, who issued this temporary restraining order to stop
Speaker 1: the Trump administration from activating California National Guard, he's gonna
Speaker 1: suffer no consequences from this whole thing. He'll get overturned
Speaker 1: by the Ninth Circuit. Ah Okay, he goes back home
Speaker 1: to his very nice house, drives in his very nice car,
Speaker 1: living his very nice federal judge lifestyle. He'll get feded
Speaker 1: and whined and dined at a law school and give
Speaker 1: speeches and make a very nice salary. Yeah, he's fine.
Speaker 1: He will suffer no consequence from this. He is at
Speaker 1: no risk of getting fired. And I think the something
Speaker 1: has to give. Either the Supreme Court has to do
Speaker 1: something to limit or Congress has to do something to
Speaker 1: limit the jurisdiction of district courts, or this is just
Speaker 1: going to keep happening, and at a certain point it's
Speaker 1: going to launch a constitutional crisis of a president saying
Speaker 1: I am not going to follow what this court says.
Speaker 1: We've not gotten to that point. As much as liberals
Speaker 1: were crowing about that. When with the whole case about
Speaker 1: the airplane flights for deporting the illegal aliens and did
Speaker 1: Trump disobey that order, the Trump administration was still acknowledging
Speaker 1: the authority of those courts to issue those orders. What
Speaker 1: I'm saying the genuine constitutional crisis is what if you
Speaker 1: get to a point where the Supreme Court is issuing
Speaker 1: a ruling and the president is saying I will not
Speaker 1: follow it. That's the problem, and I think it could
Speaker 1: be more the fault of the courts than it will
Speaker 1: be of whatever president does. That if the courts continued
Speaker 1: this intrusion into Article two, into stuff that is clearly
Speaker 1: Article two stuff. When we return, Senator Padilla's insane. He
Speaker 1: is insane level of do you know who I am?
Speaker 1: This next on the John Girardi Show. So, California Senator
Speaker 1: Alex Padilla, Well, he's a US Senator representing California. Alex Padilla,
Speaker 1: one of our two US senators. Boy, we've really fallen
Speaker 1: from the days of Feinstein and Boxer, where everyone knew
Speaker 1: who Diane Feinstein Barber Boxer is. I bet most of
Speaker 1: you could not name California's two US senators. It's Adam
Speaker 1: Schiff and Alex Padilla. So Alex Padia tries to bust
Speaker 1: into and disrupt a Christi Nome press conference. Christie Nome's
Speaker 1: having a press conference talking about immigration stuff. Alex Padia
Speaker 1: bursts in and tries to disrupt it, and security basically
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, you can't do that. You're not supposed
Speaker 1: to be disrupting this press conference, and they forcibly take
Speaker 1: him out of the room and he's like fighting with
Speaker 1: these guys and struggling, and he's like so mad, and
Speaker 1: it's like this is the violence of the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, no, it's not the violence of the
Speaker 1: Trump administration. You broke into someone's press conference and we're
Speaker 1: disrupting it. They asked you to leave, you didn't leave,
Speaker 1: and then you so we forcibly brought you out of it.
Speaker 1: This Do you know who I am? I'm a United
Speaker 1: States Center. Oh I don't give a crap a United
Speaker 1: States Center. If you're at a press conference you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to be at and you're disrupting it, then you
Speaker 1: need to go. And Newsome's like, oh, this is a
Speaker 1: horrible thing. Alex Padilla is one of the most decent
Speaker 1: men I know. Oh maybe he's a very nice guy.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but uh yeah, if you disrupt a
Speaker 1: press conference, people are gonna ask you to leave. And
Speaker 1: he disrupted a press conference, and they asked him to
Speaker 1: leave and he didn't leave, And so people get past
Speaker 1: the point of asking you to leave, like this is
Speaker 1: not a complicated story, and the idea, oh this jet
Speaker 1: another instance. This is Alex Badilla wanting to get some
Speaker 1: portion of like the recognition Newsom's getting for opposing Trump
Speaker 1: and all this all right, that'll do it. John Girardi
Speaker 1: show see you next time On Power Talk