Charles C.W. Cooke
Appearances
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Yeah, so I agree with everything you just said about Pete Hexeth, and I was strongly in favor of his nomination. But let's just a thought experiment assume that instead of choosing Pete Hexeth, Donald Trump had chosen someone that all three of us thought was an absolute moron. It wouldn't matter because Donald Trump would have won the presidential election.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
He would have taken hold of, after his inauguration, the commander in chief powers, and providing the Senate had agreed, his choice for secretary of defense would have been installed in the Department of Defense. When this case was argued, that person, this hypothetical moron, would have been able to make these decisions.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
One of the criticisms that we on the right very often make of progressives is that they don't really want a democratic system. What they want is rule by experts. And what this judge is trying to do here is prove us right. Because her argument was, I don't like the expertise or credentials or opinions of person A, the person who is actually in charge.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
So I will instead try to sustain the opinions of person B, who is no longer Secretary of Defense and who was serving at the pleasure of a president who... was out of office and whose would-be successor lost. There is no rational basis review in this area. I know that she lays out what would satisfy it, but there is no rational basis review.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
There is no mechanism by which she gets to decide whether or not she respects the person who won the election or the person who the Senate agreed to put in the Department of Defense. None of that happens. And with animus, I agree with you, it's not really dripping with animus, but again, thought experiment, let's assume that it were dripping with animus.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
In most cases in the law, there are a few exceptions, but in most cases in the law, having the court try to decide the emotional state or mental motivations of people who are promulgating rules, especially within the military, is just inappropriate. That's not how law is supposed to work. We write down our laws and we decide whether or not they have been satisfied.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
So even if she personally detects animus in that or thinks that it was hateful, with a few exceptions that absolutely do not obtain here, it doesn't matter. She doesn't get to make that call.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Well, a few things. We're talking about the Alien Enemies Act because Donald Trump has invoked it. In other words, he has conceded by doing that that he needs a power to be conferred upon him by Congress, and that's the one he's chosen. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
So I guess I'm just belligerent today, Megan, because I disagree with you both on this as well. First off, Schumer did. After Schumer made that terrible statement about the whirlwind, Roberts did put out a statement. He condemned it and made a similar statement to the one he made yesterday. So he does have a history of doing this. Yeah.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
So first off, I think it's consistent with the way that he's acted as chief justice. Second, if it's inappropriate for someone who doesn't work for the legislative branch to opine on impeachment, then it's inappropriate for Donald Trump to do it. So if Donald Trump comes out as the head of the executive branch and says we should impeach justices,
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Well, it's reasonable in response, in my view, for the head of the judicial branch to say, no, you shouldn't. Why? Congress is, of course.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Right, but John Roberts did not say that it is illegal for Congress to impeach it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
No, what he said was actually correct constitutionally and historically. It's not that Congress cannot impeach justices or judges if they... want to, it's that they should not do so on the grounds of pure disagreement.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
I mean, we presumably all think this because we, the three of us, spent four years railing righteously against the Democrats for trying to pack the court simply because they didn't like the opinions of the majority. Congress can pack the court. It's allowed to do that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
But it's totally reasonable for people to say, don't pack the court just because you don't like Clarence Thomas or you don't like Alito. So I think for the judiciary to say, hey, we don't do that. We don't impeach people based on their opinions only for being wildly corrupt or what you were.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
You'll find no argument from me if you want to criticize some of John Roberts's opinions. But I think that if you look at the presumption undergirding our constitutional order, it's that ambition will counteract ambition and each branch will protect itself. And actually, the big problem that we have at the moment is that that is very often not true.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
So to me, when I see someone like Trump criticize the judiciary, although I think he's sometimes wrong on the merits and I don't often like the way that he does it, that's fine. When I see, I wish we'd see more of it, Congress criticizing the president, including the president's use of powers that the president has and indisputably is able to exercise, I think that's fine.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
And if I see the judiciary defending itself and saying, actually, no, even if it's not true, Actually, no, this judge is good and we don't talk like that. And you should not impeach us for our opinions. I think that's fine. I think that is Madisonian in nature.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Now, if those branches usurp the power of others or interfere in ways that are extra constitutional or unconstitutional, then I will have a huge problem with it. But John Roberts chastising Chuck Schumer in 2020 or responding to criticisms of Boasberg and calls for his impeachment, that just doesn't bother me. I think it's very different.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Yes, this is one of the worst Trump law cases I've ever seen. for a whole host of reasons. First off, there's simply no constitutional or statutory basis for this decision, and therefore it's void.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
I think Marco Rubio's reasonable determination will prevail here. I do suspect this might take a while, though, because there are a bunch of complicated questions that will gum up the works. One is whether or not what he engaged in was speech. I think a lot of it was not. But the... Half the country thinks it was. And then there's the fact that he has become a green card holder.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
And a green card holder is a U.S. person. They can still be deported. But the criteria for deportation is much narrower. And of course, he has an American wife who is pregnant. And I think she's eight months pregnant. So in one month, he's going to be the father of an American citizen. No, well, it is and it isn't. It's going to gum up the works, though, I think. But I think Marco Rubio's...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Second, the fake constitution makes an appearance here where the, as Rich says, core powers, core competencies, core allocations of authority to the president are subject to these supposed standards of kindness. niceness, which simply don't exist in the law in this area.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Well, it doesn't. It doesn't in that we've been discussing some judges who are bad and who are willing to put themselves in the way of the Trump agenda based on flimsy pretexts. And until you meet a panel of judges who is not doing that, then this is going to grind on. I mean, I think it could take a year as it winds its way through the system. And I think some of
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
The questions and we'll find out who's right, I suppose. But I think some of the questions that are going to be litigated here are what constitutes the rights of a US person, which is a green card holder, whether it matters that he was a US person after the various actions were taken.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Correct. But for example, and I'm not actually arguing with you here, even if I sound like it, but for example, a U.S. person is allowed to own a gun. I know this having been a U.S. person before I became a citizen. You can own a gun. And the Supreme Court has ruled that right of the people to keep in bare arms applies to U.S. person. So there will be a judge. I promise you this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
There is going to be a judge who looks at this, says the First Amendment supersedes Marco Rubio's argument, and that as a U.S. person, he is protected. Oh, yeah, there could be a judge. And I should point out that one of the reasons that...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
There are some circumstances where rational basis review, for example, might obtain, but you don't get rational basis review in the military. The president and the secretary of defense can decide who serves and why with effectively plenary reasons. power.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
She just can't do it, can she? All she has to say, all she's obliged to say as the citizen of a free republic is it is never acceptable to firebomb cars because you don't like the guy who owns the company. And she can't do it. Joe Biden, by the way, nominated her. for a federal position. Thankfully, the Senate shot it down. Joe Manchin, I think, saw sense, but she cannot do it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
And that is because at the root of modern American progressivism is the suspicion at best and the conviction at worst that violence is sometimes justified, that riots are necessary, and that all these power dynamics and hierarchies of grievances that we've been treated to for years justify what we see on the streets often and hear at car dealerships.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
The third reason it's grotesque is if you read all the way to the end, as I did last night, you sense a certain underconfidence in the judge because she lapses the conclusion into all this mawkish nonsense where she starts thanking people for their service and talks about the military as if she's making a speech on Veterans Day.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
It's absolutely astonishing to me that she can't do it. And the newspapers, incidentally, have published headlines over and over again that run a little bit like Neera Tanden's answer there, which is, suggesting that Elon Musk has angered people and therefore that they can't be held responsible if they resort to violence.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
And then she says, this, of course, will cause all manner of public debate and disagreement in the country, which is a good outcome. Why? You're a judge. The creation of debate is totally irrelevant to the job description. It's not good or bad either way. Your job is to follow the law. So this really struck me when reading it as the work of a politician rather than of a judge.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Yeah, well, I'm glad you used the word expert because for years now, there's been this back and forth in the courts between the law as it was written by Congress and the EPA's interpretation of it. Thankfully, many of the cases have gone the way of congressional will in recent years.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
But every time they do, we get these dissents from people like Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor in which they lured Congress. the experts in the community and say we should just be giving them carte blanche to do whatever they want. And then we see one on television absolutely beclowning himself. And we realize why we have the system that we have. It's very, very embarrassing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
It is also what happens when for years, you know, the media is on your side and just will reflexively back you and publish your talking points as if they were facts. You become lazy and flabby. I think, you know, the average press secretary for a Democrat is worse than the press secretary for a Republican because they're just not used to. doing the work.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
They're just not used to the hostility that sharpens people. That was a good example of it. And I'll just use this opportunity to say, Lee Zeldin is one of the best of the nominations that Donald Trump made, and seems to be doing an incredible job at EPA, not only in policy terms, but in making sure that all of the work that he's doing is legitimate and the eyes are dotted and the T's are crossed.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
I think when this administration is over and we look back on the story of it, we will say that the EPA appointment and conduct was probably one of the best parts of the whole thing.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
The other thing, aside from being borderline child abuse in its content, it's so overwrought. It's embarrassing. That's what I would write as a parody. If you told me there are people who do this, come up with the letter, I think I'd be nervous about publishing that for fear that it seemed unbelievable.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
He's a terrible writer. Also, was he trying to do a Churchill thing? I mean, that was right at the end. He was trying to paraphrase Churchill.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
No, he said never before, which is a line that Winston Churchill used after the Battle of Britain, an air campaign that quite literally saved Britain from Nazi invasion in 1940. So he's transplanted that into a description of the inauguration of, I presume, Joe Biden.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Oh, Barack Obama. Okay, better. Of course. That is such a great example, though, of how these people's priorities are all out of whack. Literal existential survival of the British Empire gets moved over onto the same plane as Barack Obama becomes president. Just insanity.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Absolutely. No, definitely not.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
Right. So I believe that all men are created equal. You can't see it, but just over top my desk is a copy of the Declaration of Independence in a frame. And that maxim, which really is the foundation of everything I write about, has absolutely nothing to do with this question. It is also true that people who grow no taller than four foot five are equal. They're not inferior.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
They shouldn't be treated differently under the law. They also can't or shouldn't be able to join the military in the same way as a six foot five Navy SEAL should. What we're talking about here is not the usual questions of how citizens are treated by the government when the government interferes with the liberty or property or lives of the citizenry.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
That's when all of the maxims in the Declaration and the premises of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, equal protection, and so forth, apply. We're talking about what should be a lethal fighting force. We have always very... partially discriminated within the military for the sole reason that the military exists to fight and kill and die. This is absurd.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
And I can't think of a better illustration of what Pete Hegseth said during his hearing that the military has left its historical presumptions and come to see itself as some sort of social club or social experimentation society than this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
You will not find, Megan, someone who is more willing to wave the Bill of Rights around or demand equal protection or call for the original understanding of the Constitution
The Megyn Kelly Show
Tesla Attacks, Weird Walz Comments, and Judges Keep Fighting Trump, with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke | Ep. 1030
than me but the original understanding of the constitution simply does not involve judges enforcing what they think is equality within the commander-in-chief's purview and that is ultimately all that matters or should matter to a judge that's right she she goes on to say um
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And on the merits, I think the argument that's being made here is really odd in that the executive branch has been delegated a lot of authority in the realm of spending. Now, I don't think it should have. And I would go as far as to say, as you probably know, Megan, that some of that delegation is illegal. I'm a non-delegator. I think the Supreme Court has allowed this to go too far.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
But it's been doing that since the 1930s. This did not start yesterday. If it was legitimate for Bill Clinton or George W. Bush or Barack Obama or Joe Biden to make spending decisions, not whether or not the money was allocated, not whether the department existed, but decisions within the department, then it is legitimate for Trump to do so.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And all that's happened thus far is you've had essentially an audit. where Elon Musk and others have looked through the spending under the supervision of the president who is in charge of the executive branch and said, here is what's being spent. There hasn't been an attempt to shut down or consolidate or move this agency. If there is, there will be a genuine constitutional question.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And if the administration ignores the courts, maybe a constitutional crisis. But this just strikes me as being wildly premature.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
If you read the law, you won't find any of the items that you just read out. The USAID program was started in the 60s by John F. Kennedy as an executive order. It then existed for 37 years, and eventually Congress got around to writing a law that codified it in 1998. Now, that law has certain parameters. The president can't use it, for example, to invade France.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
He can't use it to build wind turbines in North Dakota. But it doesn't contain any of the provisions that you just... outlined, those are discretionary. Now, again, I don't think they should be. I would like Congress to pass laws with bullet points in them that allocated down to the minute level, all of the funds that it wants to spend. I think Congress has got out of the habit of doing this.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
I think Congress has started to write the president shall or in the judgment of the secretary or in the opinion of the agency and all of that. I've been arguing this for years. I have not changed my view on this. But it hasn't done that. That is not what that law from 1998 or the executive order from 1961 says.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Now, if those things aren't listed in the law, that means the president can't do them at all unless there is another part of the law that says that the president gets to decide how the money is spent, again, within the broad parameters. That's what that law says. It's what it does.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
We cannot have a constitutional order that only allows non-Donald Trump or non-Republican presidents the discretion that Congress has accorded. I think that the administration has to abide by the judiciary. I am not arguing otherwise. But insofar as there is a proximate cause of any constitutional tension at the moment, it is from judges who are ruling
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
that the president of the United States is unable to exercise the discretion that Congress has granted him. That's the root problem. Now, yeah, they have to wait. They have to elevate this up the chain. I think they're not gonna like the results when the Supreme Court finally looks at this, which I hope is sooner rather than later. But for now, the problem here is not the president.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
It is the other entities that are trying to tell him what to do. And one final thing on this. The secondary argument that you get is, well, okay, but Trump does have to spend money. What he can't do is say, I am no longer spending money on USAID. But there's a time component to that, right? Trump has been president for what, 20 days?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
So suppose that you come in as a new administration and you want to evaluate what your predecessor has done and you run an audit, which is what Doge is in effect. you might, for a while, stop all payments. You might say, well, we're not gonna spend any money until we've worked out what we want to spend it on.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Now, at that point, perhaps you are obliged to empty the coffers and say, right, we are gonna do what Congress has asked us to and spend this money on X, Y, and Z areas. But you don't have to do it on day one. You don't have to say, I'm cutting two and a half million here, so tomorrow I'll be spending it on something else. So this whole thing seems wildly premature to me, wildly selective.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And to call it a constitutional crisis of the executive branch is just bizarre to me.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
No, they completely ignored it. Biden did two things that were bad in this area. The first thing he did was manipulate the courts at best and ignore them at worst. You mentioned the eviction moratorium. You go back and you look prior to the announcement of the continuation of the eviction moratorium, which seems to have been the product of Cori Bush lying down outside the Capitol and crying.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Quite literally, that seems to have been what turned the tide. The Biden administration said over and over again that it could not do it. There are great quotes about this from Biden himself where he says, we've crossed the T's and dotted the I's. I've had my guys check it three, four times. We don't have the authority.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
They already had at that point a memorandum from Justice Kavanaugh in which he said that Congress would have to authorize it further. And they did it anyway. And they told Philip Wegman, Biden himself told Philip Wegman that he was doing it because it might take time to litigate and therefore he could at least buy people a month or so. That is a flagrant violation of the court order.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And he went into it knowing what he was doing was illegal. That was awful. Another example of that was the OSHA regulation, the vaccine mandate for large companies. He knew that was illegal. Jen Psaki told the press corps that they couldn't do it six months before he did it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
With the student loan thing, you had a slight wrinkle, which was that Joe Biden was desperate to persuade the public that he was violating the law, even though he wasn't. He had violated the law with his order. He knew when he issued his student loan executive order that it was illegal because everyone knew that it was illegal.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Nancy Pelosi had said a year before that the president did not have the authority to do it. Donald Trump's education department had said at the end of his first term that the executive branch did not have the authority to do it. Every expert who had weighed in had told him, you're not allowed to do this. He did it anyway. That is a massive violation of his oath of office.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
He then gets his order struck down by the Supreme Court. He moves to two different It wasn't that he kept doing the one that had been struck down. He moved to two different ones that would never got looked at by the courts because they were too long. And then he ran out of time. But he told everyone that he was ignoring the court.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
In other words, Biden wanted the American public to believe that he had ignored a court order. Thank you Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
It's funny you mentioned your experience with the Roosevelt. The Roosevelt's actually where I took my wife for a drink at the bar on our first date. Yes, it's got a good bar. Yeah, and I used to stay there when I would go to New York for TV or other events. I think my sister stayed there before
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
So it really is astonishing as someone who like you was used to that being a hotel and a nice-ish hotel too with a good bar to see it now as a repository of illegal immigrants. So you mentioned the popularity of some of Trump's early actions.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
As a rule, I don't like it in politics when people use the phrase common sense, because they're often trying to steal a base and pretend that their personal politics are common sense and their opponents aren't. But really, there are so many things on which the Democrats have inexplicably seeded ground that are actual common sense.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And we disagree on lots of things in this country, which is why we have two political parties and why we have elections and we have debates and so forth. And a lot of those things aren't going to go away because they're just the product of different philosophies. But then there are the things that you just described.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
I mean, earlier, all of that spending on foreign aid that I think 90% of people would think sounded crazy. Men in women's sports, spending $59 million to put up illegal immigrants in hotels. There's a suicidal instinct in the current Democratic Party that has created this opening and Trump has just walked into it and he's benefiting from it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
On the specific FEMA point with the Roosevelt Hotel, that is a perfect example of how many people in the bureaucracy have come to see themselves. this myth that was developed over time and that is so often parroted by the press, that the executive branch within itself has separation of powers or checks and balances, that the Department of Justice or the FBI are independent.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
When you accept that false premise, you get to this point at which bureaucrats who operate at the pleasure of the president, who is the only elected official in whom power is vested, can make decisions on their own judgment. They can't. They exist to do what the president wants them to do. But that is not the same thing. as saying that the president has unlimited power.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Of course he doesn't because Congress has most of the power. But when it comes to decisions such as that one, the president gets to make that call. So these people should be fired. There should be an example made of them so that it doesn't happen again. That money should be clawed back. And anyone who complains about it should be given an eighth grade civics lesson.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
This is not how our government works. Trump has been abundantly clear on this. There's no ambiguity. He issued these orders on day one or day two of the new administration. It is just crazy to me that there are people in the government who think they have the authority to spend $59 million against the wishes of the guy who's in charge.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Yeah, it is more important, but I don't like it. I think they're two separate questions. I absolutely want to end this horrible tendency of spending huge amounts of money to house illegal immigrants in hotels. And I think that Eric Adams, although I'm not a big Eric Adams fan, is an improvement over Bill de Blasio, because who isn't?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
But I do worry a bit about this tendency of people who are under... the threat of legal action or have been convicted of crimes to try and find common cause or solidarity with Donald Trump, who I think really was treated badly by Bragg, and use that to get a pardon or a commutation or their case dropped.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
It's just not the case that our system is irredeemably corrupt or that every case is exactly the same. And the information I read about Eric Adams suggested he did something pretty bad, as had It did not look good. No, and we've seen a bunch of these. I mean, Rod Blagojevich just got his full pardon.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And what was the first thing that Bob Menendez, the New Jersey senator who also committed terrible crimes, said once he was sentenced to 11 years in jail? He said, now I understand how Donald Trump feels. Come on, dude. You did it. You took money.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Right, right. So I don't like that, and I don't like how susceptible to it Donald Trump seems to be. But sure, I mean, if we're separating those questions out... Eric Adams is preferable to Bill de Blasio and insofar as the new administration can work with municipalities and states to stop this, that's good.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
What is, I think, fundamentally important here is that the bureaucracy responds within the law to the president's instructions. And we're seeing a whole bunch of signs already that it's not. And that is an attack on democracy. The left talks a great deal about democracy. Sometimes I agree with him. As your listeners know, I didn't vote for Trump because of how he behaved in 2020.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
But democracy does not mean things progressives like. There are consequences to Trump's having won. He gets to run the executive branch. And this is an example of him running the executive branch. So I...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
I just despair when I read about this because what you're essentially defending, if you defend those employees who sent this money, is there being some fourth branch of government out there that is accountable to nobody and that is spending your money as a taxpayer based on its own preferences.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
That's literally the opposite of it. Right.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
My life is so boring compared to that. I've never done that, I have to say. No, I mean, you can't see it, but if you look just to my left is my desk and I've got all my 1099s on there and my W-2s and doing my taxes. And it never occurred to me to send that cash out into Bitcoin as the precursor to leaving the country and maybe a non-extradition nation and fleeing federal oversight.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Never occurred to me. Maybe I should up my ambition.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Yeah, I mean, I do think that when you're evaluating whether or not someone is a flight risk, just the fact of them being an extremely high stakes gambler probably bolsters the chances that they are. I had a friend at university who, yeah, he was a professional gambler. And in our first year at university, he won 300,000 pounds playing poker.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
What he would do is he would go down to these big London clubs. sort of gambling calls, and he would wait for Chinese businessmen to run in who just didn't care whether they won or lost, they just wanted entertainment. He was an amazing poker player, so he would just win, right? So year one, he makes this huge amount of money. We're all students, we just can't believe it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And then in year two, he loses 150,000 pounds on net. And I said to him, I said, I don't know how you could have carried on to the point at which you lost money. Because if I'd won 300,000 pounds out of stock, right, instead of keeping going and losing half of it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And he said to me, well, it's a stupid thing to say, which it was, because if you had stopped, you'd never have won it in the first place. It's just not how gambling works. You have to be prepared to lose everything you have at any given point. And that's true. And I've always remembered that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Well, if this guy's playing $29 million stakes poker, I think the federal government might be onto something when they think he could leave the country on a whim.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Well, first off, it is completely insane that the federal government gets to tell us what straws and light bulbs and shower heads that we can use. This should never have happened. But... It did take that power and then it delegated that power to the president. So he's completely within his rights to do this. I think it will be wildly popular.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
The most annoying argument that I've seen against this from the left is why is he focusing on this? You know, why, when there are so many issues, is he worrying about straws? Which is a silly question. Why did you worry about it in the first place such that he had to reverse it? You can't have it both ways.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
If it doesn't matter what straws people use or what light bulbs people have or what shower heads or dishwashers people are allowed to buy, then you should never have started issuing executive orders and agency rules in the first instance. You can't blame the guy who, with the backing of the public, comes in and reverses your rules and then say, it's so weird, why does he care about that?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
And that is, of course, what they've done across a whole bunch of issues, what they did with the trans issue as well. We had two and a half thousand years of sports in which men and women were not regarded as the same thing, in which the risks were understood. The left came in and said, hey, Maybe men should be playing in women's sports and anyone who disagrees with a bigger...
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
People stood up and said, I don't think that's a very good idea. And they said, why do you care, you weirdo? It's just so cynical. So this would never have happened if they hadn't tried to regulate this in the first instance. So to go after Trump and say, why isn't he worrying about bigger issues, I think is really unfair. This is something that people are annoyed by because of over-government.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
What I would like to see, and I don't think it's going to happen, but what I would like to see is having issued these orders and got these rules through, is for Congress to step in. and pass a law saying this is no longer the preserve of the presidency. And that if the federal government's going to regulate this at all, it can't be changed until such time as Congress changes it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Because you're never going to get a groundswell in America that wants Congress to outlaw plastic straws or LED light bulbs. This has to come from the bureaucracy because people hate it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Thanks for having me.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
Well, I don't think there's a constitutional crisis. If they ignore a court order, there might be, although... There are a lot of checks and balances within our system that declaring anything a constitutional crisis at the first hurdle is often premature. The issue here in most of these cases is that a judge has indulged what David French used to call Trump law.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
In a sense, they said the executive has these powers, but Trump's not allowed to exercise them. The way you deal with that as an administration is you take it to higher courts and you make your case. I think it might have been good politics if J.D. Vance had added one line at the end of his tweet saying, and we will win this at the Supreme Court.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
But not doing so doesn't constitute a constitutional crisis. But I thought Sheldon Whitehouse, of all people, Suggesting that criticizing the court system as J.D. Vance did is beyond the pale. Are you kidding me? This is a guy who has spent the last five, six, seven years arguing that the Supreme Court is bought and paid for is illegitimate.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Left Pushes "Constitutional Crisis" Narrative, and Trump Brings Back Plastic Straws, with Charles Cooke, Rich Lowry, and Carol Swain | Ep. 1005
A member of a party that spent the Biden years contending that the Supreme Court was not legitimate. in fact, an equal branch of government, but was a stain on the system that could only be remedied by court packing, an idea so crazy that even Franklin Roosevelt was repudiated when he tried it in the 1930s. So as of yet, there is nothing that gets close to a constitutional crisis.