The Rachel Maddow Show
Even Republicans object as Trump DOJ nominees are disturbingly noncommittal on obeying courts
Fri, 28 Feb 2025
A bright red line before a country loses democracy entirely is when its government loses respect for the rule of law and feels free to ignore rulings by judges. So when some of Donald Trump's nominees to be senior DOJ officials gave soft answers on whether a president can ignore judges, alarms rang for many senators present, even Republicans. Senator Dick Durbin, leading Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, talks with Rachel Maddow about the peril Trump poses to the essence of America's identity.
Chapter 1: What was the federal judge's deadline for the Trump administration?
At the end of last night's show, you might remember we were counting down to a midnight deadline that had been given to the Trump administration by a federal judge. A judge had ordered the Trump administration to restart funding on foreign aid. Now, this is a judge who had previously ordered the Trump administration to restart that funding, and they had not.
He had then brought Trump administration lawyers back into his courtroom this week and said, it doesn't seem like you're complying with my earlier order. Can you tell me what steps are being taken to comply with my order? The Trump administration lawyer then responded by basically going, how many, how many, how many, how many, how many, how many?
The judge at that point—we got the transcript, actually. The judge at that point said, quote, Hey, I guess I'm not sure why I can't get a straight answer from you on this. Hey, After that just humiliation of the Trump administration's lawyer unable to explain why the Trump administration was defying this lawful order, that judge issued what's called a motion to enforce.
And he set this midnight deadline for midnight last night by which the Trump administration had to do what he said, had to restart that aid funding. So that's what we were talking about last night at the top of the show. And then just as we were going off the air at the end of the show last night, the Trump administration ran to the U.S. Supreme Court.
And just before we went off the air, just before the end of last night's show, the Trump administration obtained an order from the Supreme Court saving them from that midnight deadline. Right. So they're less than three hours away from that deadline.
And the Supreme Court at the very last second steps in and says, no, no, no, Trump administration, you don't have to release that funding by midnight after all. And we want briefing on this by noon on Friday. So we'll see what happens by noon on Friday, by tomorrow noon at the U.S. Supreme Court.
But because of the Supreme Court's intervention, that USAID funding did not start flowing last night at midnight. And this confrontation and this series of events raises like a whole Niagara Falls of issues and consequences. I mean, first of all, and most importantly, it's the substance of it, right? I mean, what's that funding for?
Well, among other things, it's for the magnificently successful world-renowned U.S. AIDS treatment programs that have been interrupted. That puts tens of millions of lives— at risk. With that funding not flowing, those programs aren't restarting.
The new work that is not being done because that funding hasn't restarted includes little things like, I don't know, work on the previously unknown brand new hemorrhagic fever that has just broken out in Congo. It killed three little kids in Congo over the course of three days. And then immediately within like 10 more days, the death toll was 53.
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Chapter 2: Why did the Supreme Court intervene in the USAID funding issue?
And amid this fight and amid this drama and amid the American people being so palpably mad about what they are doing, the single most important line that just cannot be crossed ever is to have a president defying the law and defying the courts, because that is the end. And on that, Senator Dick Durbin joins us next. Stay with us.
During a confirmation hearing yesterday, something happened that I don't think has ever happened before. Multiple nominees for senior justice department jobs said during their confirmation hearings out loud that they're not sure that presidents have to obey rulings from the courts. Not always.
There is no hard and fast rule about whether in every instance a public official is bound by a court decision.
Generally, if there's a direct court order that binds a federal or state official, they should follow it. Why do you say generally? Give me an exception. I suppose one could imagine hypotheticals in extreme cases.
The president has now asserted that he has the right basically to do what he thinks is necessary to save the country. And I'm asking whether that includes violating a Supreme Court order.
I've represented President Trump for two years. I've never been put in any situation like that.
And I don't know. I just got to say, Mr. Chairman, that's a little bit frustrating.
That's a little bit frustrating. You may recognize one of those nominees, the guy with the raspy voice. He's named John Sauer. He is the lawyer who told a federal appeals court that Donald Trump would be within his rights to order a team of Navy SEALs to assassinate his political opponents, that Donald Trump could not be prosecuted for giving such an order.
Mr. Sauer is now up for the job of solicitor general, which is the person who represents the United States government before the Supreme Court.
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Chapter 3: What are the consequences of halting USAID funding?
The American Prospect was first to report that the Social Security Administration is preparing to slash fully 50 percent of its workers. That would mean filing nearly 30,000 people who work on getting people their Social Security checks. Social Security Administration has already lost thousands of employees in the last decade. They want to cut 30,000 people now.
That kind of a mass firing called a reduction in force is reportedly being planned all across federal agencies. But slashing jobs and programs for veterans in particular is not something the Trump administration is going to be able to do quietly with no pushback. That's obvious. Military Times says Leo Shane was on a call with lawmakers this afternoon about federal workers being fired.
He posted this quote from Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, quote, I think Donald Trump in six weeks has already achieved the record of having fired more veterans than any president in the history of the United States. That is not a distinction, he says, quote, that is a disgrace. Joining us now is Leo Shane. He's deputy editor at Military Times. Mr. Shane, Leo, it's nice to see you.
Thank you very much for being back.
I appreciate the invite.
What's your understanding of how this 24-hour reversal went down at the VA? They announced all these cuts and then they took it all back. What happened?
Yeah, I'm not sure that they have taken it all back. We've gotten an official word from VA that they're reviewing these contracts and that they will make sure that there's no impact, there's concerns about it. But I've talked to sources within the VA and some of these offices. They haven't gotten official word that these have been rescinded. They're still working under the assumption that
These will eventually go away, that at least most of the contracts they've started looking at will disappear at some point in the future here. So there's just a lot of uncertainty. I think the VA is now realizing just how deep some of these cuts are, and they're trying to claw back. Maybe some of these will be reversed.
But at least officially, these offices haven't been told that they're in the clear.
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