The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1000: David French: Trump Admits He's Violating the Constitution
Fri, 14 Mar 2025
Trump & company aren't even attempting to create a pretext for why they're punishing the free speech of political opponents. They are basically confessing in writing to violating the First Amendment. At the same time, the administration claims it's throwing a Hamas supporter out of the country in the name of fighting antisemitism—while giving jobs to the 'right kind' of antisemites. Plus, MAGA turns on Amy Coney Barrett, Trump sees Canada as 'our Ukraine,' and we're looking at a party that is governing like it will never give up power. David French joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes David's column on Trump's attack on the First Amendment (gifted) Post that David referenced that was retweeted by Jessica Riedl Tim's playlist
Chapter 1: What are the key issues in Trump's First Amendment violations?
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The highest profile instance this week is the case of Mahmoud Khalil, which we talked about a bunch yesterday with Sam Stein. But I'm wondering where you fall on this, because obviously there's a free speech element to it, of course. Is there a First Amendment element to it? It's, I guess, maybe a little grayer. But how do you kind of assess the case?
So this case really does kind of hit all the parts of the First Amendment. Yeah. You're talking about the full spectrum of First Amendment rights at Georgetown. Go to Perkins Coie, which I haven't even gotten into Perkins Coie.
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Chapter 2: How is Chuck Schumer handling the Senate filibuster?
actual Americans that need the services of firms like Perkins Coie that are going to be conceivably hurt by this, right? Like it's two of the big law firms. There are only so many lawyers that, you know, have the security clearances that have the experience of the expertise in these types of cases, right?
I mean, like, don't you think that there's actual harm potentially even beyond just the law firm itself?
Oh, for sure. I mean, you make it very difficult. Let's put it this way. Let's suppose you're somebody who is a dissenter or a whistleblower in the Trump administration and you're looking for legal representation. So if the order against Perkins Coie would be allowed to stand, you couldn't go to Perkins Coie. Right. You have other firms that are now... Can't go to Covington. Covington and Burling.
Are they going to work with you after what's happened to them? Revocation their security clearances. So it puts a pall. It has a chilling effect. On really one of your most fundamental elements of participation in the legal system, can I get a lawyer? And so I will fully acknowledge that a lot of elements of Donald Trump are he's incompetent and ignorant in a lot of areas.
But after we've watched 10 years of him dominate the American political scene, you can't say the man isn't politically shrewd. And one thing that he does that is very politically shrewd is he picks the right targets.
And so just as there's not too many people who are really worried about the fate of white shoe law firms, the American elite higher education, it does not exactly have a lot of defenders right now. Foreign aid that Trump has gone after. Historically, Americans have had really mixed feelings about foreign aid. So he's taken a lot of targets.
I'm sure we'll end up talking some about Mahmoud Khalil in Colombia. Let's just do it right now. Yeah, let's go right to that. Yeah, not a sympathetic target to millions and millions and millions of Americans. Because this was a guy who was a leader in student protests in Colombia. Some of the groups he belonged to were actively sort of pro-Hamas.
You know, the encampments in Columbia were uniquely terrible, more so than many other universities. They had a takeover of Hamilton Hall, you know, an illegal takeover of Hamilton Hall. So this is a guy, to the extent that he participated in all of that, is not somebody that most Americans are looking at and saying, we need to protect this guy at all costs. And not an American citizen.
He's a legal green card holder on top of that.
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