Before Project 2025: How the Right Built Trump’s Power Grab (with David Sirota)

Welcome to The Oath in the Office. I am John Feeble saying we've got a lot to cover this week, including a very special guest, David Serrota. And this week, the nation's highest court hears oral arguments about the Constitutionality of Donald Trump's executive order declaring that children born in the U.S. to parents who are in the country temporarily or illegally should no longer be considered American citizens and the Trump administration is reviving some very old

very racist arguments to make their case.

We've now reached the point where the legal strategy is basically sight dead confederates and dead guys who call the Chinese barbarians.

It's not even subtle, it's not even dog whistle, it's a bullhorn screaming.

“Yeah, the 14th Amendment says everyone born here is a citizen, but have you considered the opinions of some racist dead guys who didn't like that idea?”

Let's go to the star of our program, Professor of Constitutional Law and Political Science, one of the country's leading voices on executive power, Civil Liberties and the Constitution, and he doesn't like me to say it, but he's a fine break dancer, Professor Cory Brechneider, it's good to see you. Thank you so much, John, and, you know, to get through the horrible arguments that Trump administration is making in this case, what better way to do it than with your brilliant, I know that have me cracking up from the beginning.

Let's get into it, you know, I love that setup, that's who they're sighting. They're like, have we considered what the 1800s most aggressively wrong people thought you're on her, and they're presenting this as a originalism, Cory, and you missed your calling. Oh, that's exactly right, and they're presenting it as a originalism at the same time. Let me just say some basic facts about this case and why I'm not going to, you know, pretend otherwise I think that the arguments

for why we should be able to strip birthright citizenship from the children of undocumented people, and really from anyone born in the United States are utterly ridiculous. The idea of originalism is supposed to be that you read the text, and the text gives us an idea, it's the forefront idea of what people thought the text meant at the time of being acted. What were they doing here?

Yes. The 14th Amendment, a constitutional amendment, that says so clearly that if you're born in the United States, you're a citizen full stop, and now what the Trump administration is trying to do is to claim, that's not what it means, that this is only an amendment that applies to formally enslaved people and their children, that it isn't a universal idea.

“When you can read it for yourself, playing this day, that's what it says.”

They have arguments, they're not good arguments, but one of their arguments is that the phrase subject to the jurisdiction, that that phrase is what limits the amendment. Oh, and birthright citizenship, only to the children of formally enslaved people. Of course, the context of the amendment was largely about formally enslaved people and undoing the horror of slavery, but it was to undo it with a principle. The principle is also enthrined in the

constitution of equal protection, and this was the very clear way that they tried to take the idea of equal protection and apply it to everyone. Frederick Douglass has an amazing quote at the time explaining the idea here that this isn't going to be a country where your ethnicity is going to determine whether you're a citizen, what better way is sent clarity than a simple rule, at which is that if you're born in the United States, you are a citizen.

Yeah, birthright citizenship exists because of racism, not in spite of it. It was created

out of the Civil War to overturn Dred Scott, which said Black folks could never be citizens.

It guaranteed citizenship to formally enslaved people, but more importantly, to our purposes today, it prevented states from racially deciding who counts as an American. So these guys aren't restoring the constitution, Corey. They're trying to reboot the worst season of America. I mean, how many times does history have to say no before racists stop asking the same question? So this brings us to the story of Wang Kim Ark. How does the

“U.S. versus Wang Kim Ark directly address and settle the question of birthright citizenship?”

Well, I think the first thing that settles it is what I just said. That is plain as day. The text says what it says. I should say this wasn't even an issue. I thought it was

ridiculous when it first came up in the first Trump administration. And John Eastman, who later

went on to basically organize the insurrection and the attempted coup of January 6, was trying to make a name for himself and he was going around debating people. I was asked to debate this issue during the first Trump administration with pro Trump, somebody who was arguing the point that the administration is trying to argue now. And my response then, and it still is, is that this is not a two sides issue. Read the amendment for yourself. You can see what it says.

that the amendment means what it says, that if you're born in the United States, that you are a citizen.

“And even if you're a Chinese national, as Wang Kim Ark talks about, your child is a citizen”

of the United States, full stop. And this isn't rocket science. The drafters of this amendment, knew what they were doing. If they wanted to craft a narrow amendment that talked about the children of formerly enslaved people, they would have done that. But that's not what they did. They created a broad category of broad rule that protects everyone who's born in the United States full stop. The phrase subject to the jurisdiction does apply in cases for instance of diplomats who are

here temporarily and have immunity. They're not subject to the jurisdiction. And so, yes, there are these narrow exceptions. But the idea that you would blow that up, blow up subject to the jurisdiction, and narrow the rest of the amendments. So it's only the children of former slaves. As you say, there were people, of course, who had views that tried to narrow the amendment, who narrowed wanted to narrow equal protection. They were the white supremacists and racist

xenophones of the 19th century. And so, there was people trying to revive slavery under a different name. Of course, in the 19th century, white supremacy, far from being destroyed, was a big part of our politics. But the amendment that passed was a repudiation of that view. Well, and now here they are in 2026, dusting off the same arguments, like their vintage wine instead of expired milk. And this white house quarry, I mean, they're acting shocked

that we're noticing that the whole party line seems to be, no, we're not being racist. We're just aggressively agreeing with racist from two centuries ago. But this case also involved indigenous North Americans at a time when they were treated as members of sovereign nations,

“not fully recognized citizens. I think that was 1924. Corey, how does that historical context”

undermine its use in today's immigration debate? Well, you know, one thing about this, I should just pull back a little and back up my claim that there really shouldn't be two sides

to this issue. And my view, which is that the Supreme Court never should be taking it,

and that we've never should have gotten to this point. But once things start to get going, and of you, which is regarded as wacky in the beginning, starts to have political poll, and especially the poll of this, well, white supremacist administration. You start to find cases that seemingly, at least on the surface, support their view. So they do have a case about Native Americans that said birthright citizenship doesn't apply to Native Americans in the 19th century.

But as you alluded to, it's totally irrelevant. The status of Native Americans in the 19th century was unique that Native Americans were seen to be part of a concurrent sovereign nation on American soil. And so to use this totally superfluous, different question, which is really, you know, a historical vestige of something that doesn't exist anymore. The idea of separate citizenship for Native Americans is totally inappropriate to the case at hand. So they do have a case about

Native Americans that they're citing on their side. They have an argument, too, that somehow allegiance to the nation is what defines whether or not your child is going to be a member of the United States. There's nothing in the text that says that. And yet they're trying to use this case about Native Americans to, you know, kind of faulty way, bring this up. They can't believe it. They have the conservatives claim to adhere to idea of textualism, reading the text strictly.

No strict version of the text would have this. And no serious look at case law would confuse the case about Native Americans with this current case. I want to point out that Saturday was the 128th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision affirming birthright citizenship. And Sandra Wong, the great granddaughter of Wong Kim Ark, marched at the No Kings Rally in San Francisco. And Cory, I mean, we've seen the numbers millions participated in the latest protests. And I wondered what

your thoughts were on what we saw with No Kings this weekend. And this kind of popular uprising. This is the first No Kings that's also an anti-war protest. I mean, how significant do you think or mass protests movements are really in shaping constitutional outcomes?

They are crucial. And I just have to say to the many listeners who I know from Cory Spondons,

were there who were marching. This matters. It is the way that we stand up to this attempt to take over an destruction of our democracy, to this attempted self-coo as I often call it by Donald Trump. And the phrase, no Kings, really gets to the idea that we are facing a threat from within. A dangerous part of our constitution is that the presidency is so powerful. And collapsing the war powers, collapsing the spending power, trying to destroy the textual parts of our constitution,

“including birthright citizenship. That's what this administration is trying to do. And what's”

worked in the past, as much as we've been talking about the court and this upcoming argument,

been citizens rising up in defense of a democratic constitution facing off against an authoritarian

“one. And that's what this rally these marches or millions of people around the country stood for.”

I think you're exactly right. I think in the case of the Vietnam War, I mean, look at that. Supreme Court didn't make that end, but thousands of citizen protests brought it to an end. I've always thought that Crosby still snatched it more to end that war than any of the courts, and most of the politicians. But we should point out that we do have a right of citizens to petition the government for a dress of grievances. Right? Protest itself doesn't work outside

the system. Protest is part of the system of a constitutional democracy. Absolutely. And yet at the

same time that it is the crucial part. I would say it's up there with voting, you know, the first

amendment, the right to dissent. It's not something that we can take for granted that during the Adams administration, which I often talked about, the second president tried to shut down dissent by punishing those criticized him over 126 people, including newspaper editors, the sitting congressman. And this president, of course, wants to do the same thing with ICE's deportation force that he's

“turned into an anti-protest force. So the only way to really ensure that our democratic rights”

are protected is to use them. And that's part of what we're doing. And I'll also add, you know, the next phase, I think, of no kings is starting to see in a gender, not just of resisting this president, that's part of it, but of recovering our constitution, getting rid of the immunity case,

saying that a president can be prosecuted if he commits a crime, pardon reform. And so that's what

I'm excited about. And we've got this momentum. It's clearly directed at Trump's authoritarianism, but it also can be used and channeled into recovery of our democracy. One more thing, John sorry, about war is, you know, that is exactly part of this, that the war powers are divided up by our constitution. We don't have a kingly war power where the king can initiate war and carry it out. The framers brilliantly divided the war power to Congress to initiate war. And yes, the president,

the equivalent of the executive of the king, to carry it out. And yet this president ignores that, and has just launched really nearly without any strategic plan or war in Iran. And so it absolutely fits the idea of no kings. I'm so excited to talk about this with our guest David Sorota today,

as well, but before we hit the break, Corey, if you were designing a no kings agenda,

what would you say are the top reforms we need to prevent abusive executive power? You know, we are going to talk to David Sorota, and we're going to talk about his podcast, called Master Plan, which defines analogies, as I do in my work between past moments in this one. One past moment, we'll ask him about Nixon, and one past moment was in the aftermath of Nixon, where there were a series of reforms to try to reclaim our democracy. The war powers act attempted

to do that. The ethics and government act, which created an independent council who couldn't be fired by a president to investigate the president's crimes, was created. Those ideas have to be changed. We have to rethink them, but we need to put all of that on the agenda. We need a project

“29 to think about reform of the presidency, and that's what the no kings rally should push us to.”

So specifically, reversing the immunity case, initially we talked about with Sheldon White House, and we could do that. I believe through ordinary legislation by narrowing the meaning of what an official act that is immune is. That's the kind of pushback that the American people through Congress can have. Council, who is charged a law that creates the possibility of a prosecutor who could look into the president's crimes without being fired, and bring a prosecution

that also needs to be part of it. Pardon reform, not allowing presidents to pardon co-conspirators or family members. I think all of that needs to be incumbent, not just on Republican presidents, but on Democratic presidents as well. And one of the heroes I think overlooked, so often, as president Carter, who signed much of this legislation and subjected himself to oversight, that's what it means to have no person, not even a president above the law.

Well, you know, maybe, but we could also find some dead guys who thought entire groups of people couldn't be citizens and sight their points. Let's take a very quick break because I want to talk to you about this very troubling Supreme Court ruling on the torture of children that is known as gay reparative therapy. This is the oath in the office. There is a lot, I mean a lot going on in the news around our government and our laws,

and there's one question we hear all the time. Is this constitutional? If you don't remember all the civics classes you may have taken in school, you can get the answer to that question of many others by listening to civics 101. The claim podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio. Civics 101 is an entertaining way to learn about how our government works,

Hosted by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capotech, civics 101 will help you understand a bit more about

“what's going on, and maybe even make you a smarter citizen. You can listen to civics 101 wherever”

you get your podcasts, and tell them the oath in the office sent you. "You're not going to be a dictator, are you?" I said, "No, no, no other than they won." How did Donald Trump turn the presidency into a king? Well, it didn't start with him. It was the goal of a decades-long master plan. "When the president does it, it is not illegal." "I'm the Decider, and I decide what is best."

"Where they won't act, I will." I'm David Sarota from Belever. On our new season of the award-winning

master plan podcast, we uncover the stealth plot to create an all-powerful president,

or as some call it, "The Unitary Executive." "The Unitary Executive." "The Unitary Executive." Our journalist revealed the hidden scheme to eliminate checks and balances, crushed democracy, and turned government by the people into government by one man.

“"I have to write to do whatever I want as president."”

Check out master plan season two, The Kingmakers. Visit masterplanpodcast.com or search masterplan in your podcast app to start listening right now. Hey, it's Cory. If you're like me, you may need to take a break from the 24-hour news cycle to recharge and renew your mind, which is why I recommend listening to how, too, with Mike Peska, the long-standing advice show and the ambinominated,

best personal growth podcast. Back for a new season, with the new host, how, too, with Mike Peska, finds answers to your most pressing questions. "I'm a fan of Mike, and you might recognize him from being a recent guest on the oath in the office, or from his award-winning reporting, or from his role as host of the longest-running daily news podcast, the gist." Each episode of how, too, follows the curiosity of a listener invited guest to tackle a real

problem, with help from world-class experts who actually know what they're talking about. Think of it as ease dropping on someone else's therapy session, without the copay or awkward silence. You've got questions, they find the answers. Follow how, too, with Mike Peska, on apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell them, "I send you." Welcome back to the oath in the office podcast. I am John Fugel Singh,

along with Professor Cory Brechneiter, and Cory, we just saw this Supreme Court ruling on what is called "Reparative Therapy" for gay kids. They cited with a Christian therapist rejecting a Colorado Law that prohibited mental health professionals from trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ minors. This is also known as torture, just as continued Brown Jackson wrote a hell of a dissent, warning this decision could make speech-only therapies

effectively unregulatable. They used the first amendment line to say this is okay.

How does that work? Does this decision fundamentally redefine the boundary between professional conduct and perfected speech? They weren't precise about where this boundary is, and there might still be regulations, including of to my mind. This dangerous form of therapy that tries to basically take children, gay children, and convince them that there's something wrong with them, which strikes me as more akin to abuse than therapy. There's not a final decision

about that. It's going to go back to the lower courts. They're going to work that out, but what

“they did do, I think, is terrible and dangerous, which is they confuse the idea of free speech”

with the idea of the kind of therapists that should be licensed by the state to improve people's lives. And that is just a horrific mistake. I read the opinion today, and it couldn't be more misguided. Of course, there's a brilliant dissent from Justice Jackson who is really emerging as the real hero of the moment. So let me say exactly what's wrong with that in my view. What the court has said is, look, people disagree about conversion therapy. There's disagreement in the society,

and we have a first amendment right to our opinions, and that translates into what a therapist should

be able to do when a licensed therapist, when they are in therapy. Here's what I think is wrong

with that. What a license is, is not the same as what a private citizen does. It's the government coming and saying, we approve of what you're up to. You're doing something that really is trying to cure people. It's what we do, for instance, when we approve or don't approve certain drugs, we say that they're safe, and certainly we say they're not abusive, and the idea that we are in the category of whether or not we disagree, you could say whatever you want about gay rights.

You can oppose gay rights. You can oppose gay marriage. Yeah, right before. But the idea that government has to endorse you, that's a mistake. A quick point, I've written a lot about licensed plates, which might seem very far afield from this, but the Supreme Court in a case about

it can get rid of hate speech. It doesn't have to have as a matter of free speech,

a Confederate battle flag, as in Texas, a Confederate sons of America wanted, Confederate battle flag, on their specialty license plate. The government can say, we're not going

“to be part of that. And that's what a licensing scheme is supposed to be about. It's supposed to be”

about saying, we approve of what you're doing. It's safe. It's good for people. It's therapy. And that's not in the world of first amendment. It's not in the world of opinion. It's in the world of what works. And so this court badly confuses licensing with the first amendment right of free speech. I mean, just as Jackson called the implications of this potentially catastrophic, I mean, this could limit state's ability to regulate medical advice, legal counsel, financial

advising, if they involve speech. I know that states have always regulated licensed professionals,

even when their work is primarily speech. But if a therapy is widely considered ineffective or harmful by most major medical organizations shouldn't that matter constitutionally, this is abusive children. Absolutely. And that's why this isn't a hypothetical. That this form of therapy is regardless dangerous. That's why states don't want to license people who do it as therapists.

“But they're saying the first amendment should override overwhelming scientific consensus”

in regulating professional conduct. Yeah. I mean, again, they haven't said conversion therapy can't be limited by licensing. But they are saying something that's opening that possibility, which is that there is an analogy between, you know, the disagreement between us and some right-wing bizarreo podcast that is the opposite of the anti-earth and the office of the pro-authoritarian podcast. You look, we're going to disagree with a lot of things. There are a lot of those way more

of our kind. You know, we could disagree as a matter of first amendment. We're not claiming that they should be imprisoned or anything for disagreeing with us about issues like this. But when a therapist is trying to get a license, the question is, do we have to wave use equally? And the answer to my mind for all the reasons that you gave is no, we think about things like whether or not it's dangerous or

enough. So with the first amendment does, as it doesn't always resolve an issue, but it changes the

weight. And basically what the court has done is given great weight to therapists that want to do this kind of therapy. And it's put a lot of pressure on governments that want to regulate it. As opposed to the more common sense way of doing it, which is to say that licensing isn't about free speech. It's about the straight-up question of whether or not something's harmful or not. I really strong that might be, I'm trying to be precise. But in case, maybe I'm getting confusing,

so tell me if that didn't make sense. No, no, but I just have a little more question. I mean, putting aside the fact that this is child abuse, could this ruling open the door to licensed professionals promoting all kinds of dangerous and discredited treatments, as long as they frame it, as speech? I mean, this could be a great time for snake oil of all forms. Well, John, let me give you what I wish was a hypothetical, but you'll instant really recognize

as a real example. Let's say that the president of the United States has decided that bleach is a good cure for COVID and is demanding that medical doctors prescribe it. And then there are imagine, too, that there are doctors who are like, I like the president and I have medical training, but this president seems to be on to something. Does that mean that we're going to approve as a cure for COVID? No, of course not. And the fact that there's disagreement about it shouldn't

bear on this situation. It's just outside the realm of what we're supposed to do when we're approving drugs or when we're approving therapies. And what the court is said is it's a matter, essentially, yes, it is largely a matter of opinion. And I think that's just a horrible confusion of therapy and what it means when we talk about free speech. You know, like licensed plates, when the

“government is sending its own messages and that's what it is doing in licensing, it's got to do so”

with the aim of health, avoiding harm. And it's not acting in the same capacity that private citizens are acting in when they're disagreeing with one another. That's essentially what Justice Jackson said in her brilliant descent. I am disappointed with the other liberals on the court. There was a concurrent. Yeah, me too. That really seemed to just not get it. And, you know, Justice Jackson, again, he wrote this court speaking so clearly and with such common sense.

Before we hit the break, I just want to ask you quickly about the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, Corey. They're now paying TSA again. So the lines should be getting shorter in the airport should be flowing a bit better than I had last week. And the Republicans tried to blame it on the Democratic Party. And then the whole world got to see Democrats and Republicans in the Senate voting together and Republicans in the House and Republicans in the Senate fighting

over it. But the president ordered them to be paid by executive order. Constitutionality, who controls federal spending again can a president unilaterally direct payments without congressional

strong executive power and the frustration that people had in the airport Trump realized if he

just jumped on this, he would look like a kind of hero. But we've got to restore our perspective and think about the question you just asked. It's supposed to be Congress that controls spending. Congress that controls taxation and the terrorist case that was made clear. And what I thought the Congress was trying to do was to demand that we see less abuse by ICE if they're going to be funded. And one way to ensure that that power to use money in order to ensure our constitutional

rights are not violated. One way to undo that major power of Congress. The thing that distinguished us from Kingly power, the abuses of the British monarch, you know, it all goes away if the president just serves that power. And so I want to see the Democrats lean in more to the fights

to use spending in order to protect civil liberties. What happens if presidents of either parties

“start bypassing Congress on spending decisions during government shutdown scoring?”

Well, you know, I think that abuse after abuse, erosion after congressional power in the end, what you risk is what I've been warning about, a kind of monarchy, a moment in which there really isn't a democracy. It's just the president of the United States elected through the electoral college doing what he or she wants. And this is yet another example of where we might be headed in that direction. When we return, we will be joined by the great David Sarota. I am so excited

for this interview, Corey. We'll be right back. This is the oath in the office. Welcome back to the oath in the office. I am John Fuegel-Sang and a professor, Brecht Schneider. I'm terribly excited about this next guest. I've had the great pleasure of interviewing the gentleman many times on my show on current TV and on Syria sex as well. What a pleasure, John. And, you know, it's nice to have Kindred spirit. Sometimes we have people

on who we disagree with or public officials that we're trying to engage in discussion, but

“sometimes we have Kindred spirits. And I really think that's true of our guests. David Sarota”

is an award-winning journalist. He's a bestselling author and he's the founder and editor and chief of the lever. The independent news outlet that he launched in 2020. He also served as Bernie

Sanders, the campaign speech writer in 2020. And he's also got this amazing podcast that we're

going to ask him about master plan. He was nominated too. If that wasn't enough for the Academy Award for helping to create the story, don't look up. And also won the writer's Guild of America Award in 2022 for Best Original Screenplay. What a pleasure. David Sarota, welcome to the oath in the office. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Great to have you. I want to just jump in, you know, by asking about some of the topics that you talk about master plan. As I said, it's a Kindred

podcast. We, of course, have an ad swap that listeners have heard on the podcast. And part of what you're doing, which we're also trying to do on the show is to get context for what's happening in the current threat to democracy. I've been calling it attempted self-coo to destroy the other branches of government, the Congress, and the judiciary through the power of the presidency. And yet, you know, we can learn a lot. This didn't come out of nowhere by looking to history. And I wanted

to ask you about some of the analogies. And maybe starting from the Reagan era, you see, I know an analogy with some of what happened during the Reagan presidency as long ago as it was. So what

“an analogy do you see with that moment? Well, so I think we have to understand that the Reagan presidency”

and what happened when it comes to presidential power happened as a response to the response to watergate. So for context, watergate happens, we don't have to go into the details of watergate, but it is understood to be a situation where the imperial presidency has gotten out of control. And not just by the way, in the watergate scandal itself, but Richard Nixon's entire presidency is seen as a user patient of power by the presidency. This is a guy who campaigned on promising

to end the Vietnam War, who months later was secretly expanding that war into Cambodia. This is a guy who said that he wasn't going to spend money. That Congress had already appropriated for things like road projects and the like, that sounds familiar. That's like right at a Donald Trump's playbook or put it the other way. A Donald Trump is tearing from Nixon's playbook when it comes to impoundment and the like. So watergate happens, the Congress claws back some of its power.

It passes the War Powers Act. It passes the budget impoundment act to make clear that a president can't just decide not to spend money. It passes the independent council law, which says that there can be an independent prosecutor when the president or members of the executive branch are accused credibly of serious crimes, if the executive branch can't investigate itself. So that all happens in the post-watergate period and not surprisingly, conservatives don't like it.

balance the supposedly co-equal branches of the government. Out of that backlash, conservative

“backlash to the watergate backlash comes Ronald Reagan's presidency and a number of familiar”

faces at that point, young lawyers, now familiar faces, are working inside of the Reagan administration to now try to grab much more power back for the executive branch. I'm talking about people like John Roberts, Samuel Alito, John Bolton, Ted Olson, right? This is what we call them the master plan

cinematic universe. They keep popping up over and over and over again. And they start in the first term

by essentially arguing that various laws that Congress has passed give the president executive power that the president should use more aggressively. Power to deny information to Congress, so the Congress can do oversight, executive privilege and power to hire and fire. All sorts of these sort of skirmishes inside the government over what the executive branch has to do or doesn't have to do. Reagan launches a series of military operations without congressional authorization,

“Lebanon, Grenada, et cetera, et cetera. But ultimately, they decide that they still feel constrained”

by a debate over what the statutes allow them to do. And so attorney general, Ed Mies, Ronald Reagan's attorney general begins something broader. He begins to cook up an argument called what's known as the unitary executive theory. Which argues essentially, let's stop having arguments over what Congress lets us do and doesn't let us do. Let's make a constitutional argument that says article two

of the Constitution, which is like basically one line says the executive authority is vested in

a president. Let's use that line to say that Congress none of these laws on their face are allowed that we don't have to listen to any of these laws when Congress tells us what we can and cannot do with the executive branch. And the long way of answering the question, which is, the analogy is it's that Donald Trump is now using that theory in almost everything he does. That it's not, I have to listen to this law or I have to stay within the constraints of that law. It's,

I don't have to listen to any of these laws. Exactly. There's none of these laws allegedly are constitutional on their face. Yeah, and of course many of the players that you mentioned

who were part of this conception of the unitary executive, which we've talked a lot about on this

show, now are in power themselves. So far from being a bit players, John Robertson, Justice Alito, of course, are leading the charge. I mean, one thing just to dig a little deeper into the Reagan era question, you know, one question that I have is how pernicious it allows, you know, in the hands of Trump, it really has become a tool kit that's being used to try to set up a dictatorship to really destroy the other branches and that phrase self-coo that I keep using.

I think really is accurate of re-describing a Latin American country in which the constitution was being ripped to shreds, like in the birthright citizenship case, or the spending powers,

“taxation powers of Congress were being ignored. That's how we would call it. But at the time,”

they had this idea of Reagan as a kind of hero that he wasn't as pernicious certainly as Trump. At least there have been nine form of what was going on there with me and others, where they really just were trying to create efficiency. Their story, of course, about Nixon, was that, well, the system worked, you know, Nixon faced impeachment and we didn't even have to go through the full impeachment and removal and so the system works. I mean, were they kind of naive in failing

to realize, you know, Patrick Henry's warning, which is that if you, you know, grandized presidential power, you might wind up with a dictatorship, you might wind up with a criminal president, or do you think they really did have something like the Trump playbook in mind? It's a great question. I mean, we use the metaphor that some of these people, as an example, like Dick Cheney, who was in Congress during the Reagan administration, that there is a

leopard ate my face kind of dynamic here. I let the leopard out and now I'm shocked that it's eating my face, like I do think that what you see in the Reagan administration, and by the way, a lot of other presidential administrations that are trying to concentrate power is at best, you could say, it's very short-term thinking. We want to get done x, y, and z. If getting done x, y, and z requires us to have more power to get done x, y, and z, great, we'll get done x, y, and let's not think

about what that power can be used for later, because we're only the president or the executive branch right now, and we're not thinking ahead, 5, 10, 15 years. So I certainly think that when you go back and you read these memos from John Roberts, or Sam Alito, or Ed Meese, I certainly think

balance of power should be, and it doesn't come off as necessarily corrupt, right? It's not like

“we want to get more power to enrich ourselves, or we want to get more power to necessarily do”

quote unquote bad things. Although I do think, I do think underneath it, there's a kind of corruption, it's sort of hard to describe, and it's more nebulous, it's not the corruption of my donor, gave me money in an envelope, and I want a concentrate power in the White House to give my donor what they want. It's more like the democratic process, small D, is messy. I got to go convince a bunch of people who have to go back to their districts every two years to deal with like the

messiness of like what voters actually want, and a lot of what Reagan was pushing in the heritage foundation's guidebook mandate for leadership, which of course the original project 2020, five. A lot of what they were pushing were like really unpopular policies, right? Like cutting taxes for rich people, bending money, a ton of money on the Pentagon while cutting basic social, like these are not popular things that the average member of Congress wants to run back to their district and tell

“their voters that they're doing, and so the point being that if you want to get those things done,”

well it's easier to like, well we have the executive branch. I don't want to have to sell this to Congress. So the way around this is to simply concentrate as much power in the White House as possible, and I think that this is why master plan season one and master plan season two go together. Right master plan season one is about legalizing corruption, okay? That's the 50-year story of how corruption was legalized through deregulating the campaign finance system. Master plan season two

is about the excessive concentration of power in the White House, in the hands of one person, and they go together in this way. If you are an oligarch, if you are a power broker, if you are a billionaire or a corporation, democracy is a problem for you. Exactly. Because what you're trying to do is a bunch of things that are not popular with the public that preserve your power and wealth. So how do you deal with democracy? I mean the pal memo which we go over in season one

is all about basically pal saying, we have a democracy problem. The democracy is producing too many results at the oligarch. He doesn't like and so the way you deal with that is one, you turn a one-person one-vote system, a democracy into a $1 one-vote system, you legalize corruption to the elections are rigged, and the second step you do is you concentrate as much power in the hands of one person, and then when your guy is that one person, you do whatever you want. And you trust the Democrats

that never abuse the power the way you will. Joe Biden had three solid years to abuse presidential

immunity and prevent a lot of this, and they knew the nice guys won't do it. David, there's so much I want to ask you. I've always thought it's never been conservative versus liberal in this country. The struggle has always been aristocracy versus democracy, and we're taught that it's conservative versus liberal, and it's amazing how they'll change the language to go along with these unpopular plans. They don't call it tax cuts for the obscenely rich. They call it tax relief for the job

creators. And I love how you draw a straight line between me, and the unitary executive theory, right to grown up John Roberts in his sweater vest, granting presidential immunity. With the assumption that Donald Trump is just the hood ornament on the car that crashes into the peaceful village of democracy as George W. Bush was. Do you see this as a sign of Democratic

“backsliding? Is this a sign of the system always being stress tested? Or is this just the way it is?”

Is this just how it is right now? In so many ways, Nixon and the drug war and the Southern

strategy were themselves a backlash to civil rights and voting rights. And I've never really seen a

democratic backlash in my lifetime. I've just seen the pattern of Democrats getting into the White House after the Republicans burned everything down. That was Carter. That was Clinton. That was Obama. That was Biden. Democrats never get in with things are going well. So I mean, is this just the way it is? Is this the way it's always been? It has not always been this way. I think I think you're right. Look, I'm 50 years old. I don't know how old you are, but look, we're not 90 years old and we can't

remember if they are, right? You're not really true. FDR. Yeah. What's interesting to me is that some of the things that are said about Trump, the unitary executive, proponents, etc. etc. were said about FDR. That FDR was a dictator. FDR was using too much power. FDR was ignoring different branches. The government are challenging, you know, packing the courts, etc. etc. So I guess the long view is this has been a pendulum swing and there typically has been one party is sort of on the

march aggressively using power and the other party more in a caretaker role, right? Like the so-called

the sort of status quo party while the new deal coalition was on the march. And I think that flipped in there's a pivot point. There's an amazing website actually. I can't remember the name of it. But if you google it, it's all about 1971 and it's literally a list of how everything in America changed after 1971. Interestingly, and it's all these graphs, by the way, like labor, relation to everything. And by interestingly, the Palo memo written in 1971. Okay, so the point is

“I think that I'm trying to make here is that I think that there's always been this push and pull.”

It has not always been this way. And my hope is that we are at something of a pivot point here

where if there is another democratic president that the next democratic president will not simply be a caretaker president refusing to use power in an aggressive way. Now, I should say, I do think there's like a productive middle ground between we're not going to do much with executive authority or Donald Trump over here just like pushing the line so far over the envelope, where he wakes up one day and starts World War III. Like there is a productive middle ground here.

So for folks who are thinking about this, I actually take the position when it comes to like Biden that we saw a little bit of a use of executive authority in a productive way that we hadn't seen during Obama. Like the CFPB, the FTC, the Department of Labor. Like those agencies actually did assert some executive branch authority to try to do real things in a way that the Obama administration and the Clinton administration, anti-trust enforcement and other one that they hadn't

“done. And I think that like that was like a little taste of it. And I think part of the problem was like”

Biden never sold it. He never like never became like central to the Biden administration.

I don't know if you'll think of this as a pushback, but it might be a little bit. And of course that's right, the kind of use of the presidency and the legal powers of the presidency can be used to do great things, the new deal for instance, the great society. But at the same time, my worry is and I wonder if you share this, that there's a problem in the presidency itself, maybe inherent in the office, which is that when people get in, they confuse that need to do good things with the danger of

really usurping democracy, with moving in the direction of authoritarian power. And I would point some Democrats in that position. In particular, Bill Clinton, you mentioned the Independence of Law, which we've often talked about. In fact, we were talking about it earlier in the episode and just to remind listeners, this is a law that allowed for investigation of the President of the United States and his or her crimes and also protected that person from being fired in the way that

archival cox had been fired at the behest of Nixon. And so it creates an office with real power of criminal investigation and Ken Star's office, actually, with the last independent counsel, wrote a memo saying the opposite of what the immunity case says that, yes, we have the power to indict a sitting president. Now, when Clinton was faced with the star investigation, and yes, I think it was an abusive power, it went too far. We could talk about that.

But Clinton went from supporting the law to saying, "We've got to get rid of this." And, you know, I had a piece about my work, about my book, the President, and the people in political and interview where I said it's better that we have 10 Ken stars as bad as he was than one Donald Trump.

And so I wonder if Democrats missed that message. And then Biden, I've been critical in

particular the pardon of Hunter Biden and families. I mean, that strikes me too as a kind of abusive power. So, I mean, how do we balance that? I totally agree with you need for action that makes people's lives better, that ends poverty, for instance, that creates a robust economy for all many of the issues I know that are close to your heart. But with the also need to recognize the dangers that we've all been talking about, that a President unconstrained by the law can become a dictator,

can become a king. And so, what do you think of that? I mean, what would you want to see future presidents do to ensure that their own powers constrained and that future Donald Trump's don't get to emerge as easily at least as they have now? I mean, the way I think about it is that, well, let's start with this. The Constitution, no matter what you think of it, no matter what side of the political spectrum you're on, I think we should all be able to agree that it's

fundamental premise is that power should not be concentrated in the hands of one person.

“Like, that's the basic foundational premise. Like, you need to spread power out a little bit.”

There need to be some checks and balances. And I also think that the Constitution,

it is designed to make the executive sell the policy to the Congress,

aka to the public because the premise is that the policies should have the consent of the governed, especially when it comes to like the really important stuff, how the government spends money,

“power of the person, tariffs, making of war, right? Like, that's why those are name checked in the”

Constitution that we don't want, civilization does not work well when the king gets to decide, I'm going to war and I don't even have to sell it to Congress and the people and we're living through that right now. Like, the war and Iran, not only does there's no declaration of war, it hasn't been really sold to the public at all, like that's bad. So that's all the way of saying, when I think about the power of the executive branch, the way I think Democrats should think about it

is the things that I really need to sell to the public that need the consent of the population, the really big things, taxing, spending, war, tariffs, all the things that are name checked in the Constitution. By the way, warrants were right now talking during a debate over whether it gives you to extend warrantless surveillance powers to Donald Trump, by the way. That's why we got a long line to the airport, right? Democrats have renewed that warrantless wire tapping power,

right? Like, so I like list out those things that are like name checked in the Constitution as the things that you like this founders are trying to say to us, hey, hey, don't mess with that.

“Like, do not mess with those powers, like really follow the process. Now, I think like”

below that, there's a lot of administrative things that the Democrats could do that we know are wildly popular that they have not used their executive authority when they've been in that office, correct? To do. Let me give you like two, two examples. They because to me, they seem so incredibly obvious and so egregious. The most egregious tax loophole in the entire tax code, the thing that every politician, by the way, most Republicans and all Democrats say that they are offended by,

that's gross, disgusting. The carried interest tax loophole, okay? The one that allows Warren Buffett famously to pay a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. It's called the Buffett Loophole because he even says, this is obscene. The president, through the IRS, the executive branch, could simply reinterpret the way we look at that carried interest. This is money from private equity that private equity executives classify as capital gains instead of income. The IRS

could easily say, we're not looking at it that way anymore. Sorry, we're not interpreting it that way anymore and that loophole could be closed. Now, I get the argument that we'd better to pass it in statutes so that another president couldn't reopen it. I get all that. But like, there is an example of where it's like, yes, there'd be a legal fight, et cetera, et cetera, but it wouldn't be dictatorial to say, you can't classify private equity billions of dollars of income as an

artificially low tax rate. One other quick one, the SEC has the power to say to publicly traded

“companies, you have to disclose all of your dark money spending to your shareholders, right? I mean,”

well within the SEC's right to do that. Democratic presidents have never done that. So I just

hold out like two examples where I'm like, look, you don't have to be Donald Trump waking up one day and starting World War III, like you can close tax loophole. You can like make money more transparent in politics, like there is a middle ground here without a dictator. And it can be popular. That's the thing. If you if you're a Democrat who wants to do it, it could be incredibly popular because we've seen Democrats playing moderate and how little that actually inspires people in the long run.

And this is why I love the master plan podcast, David, because I love how you trace a direct line from Watergate to Citizens United. And this is what we're all dealing with here. The have's have bought off their politicians and they have nots have not. These small groups of aristocrats that design this country where only they would be allowed to vote in every bit of rights we've ever wrestled from them has been fought for in one. This is the struggle that I want to hear Democrats

bring to working people. And every time Senator Sanders appeared on Fox News, it was always electric

to me. I'd say for Senator Warren as well. I mean, like, oh my God, you're actually getting these words into the brains of these people because we all know it doesn't matter what century you're in, the Confederates, hard work and white Confederates will always get suckered into fighting the battles for the plantation owners. Is the concern here that the Democrats are infected by the

limiting them to big talk about making the rich pay their fair share and maybe we'll raise the tax code another 3% like Bill Clinton did. Yeah, I mean, listen, my view on why the Democratic

“agenda seems so narrow is because what you have to do is you imagine it as a Venn diagram.”

Okay, on one circle are all the things that the public wants. In the other circle are the things that the donors want in the tiny little middle are the things that the public wants and the donors can tolerate. And this is why so much of the debate frankly to my mind is about nine economic issues, right? Like the donor class is perfectly happy to concede all sorts of things on social issues and culture, not to say that those aren't important, they are important.

But like the donor class where the rubber hits the road is like, oh wait, I got a pitch in, you know, one penny more than I'm pitching in, like no way I'm willing to burn the whole system down if I have to do that. Oh, I have to relinquish a little bit of my power. The public gets a little bit more of a say on things. I'm going to burn the whole system down. I'd rather I'd rather have Donald Trump and complete chaos. I mean, listen, well, there was a paraphrasing here where there was

“a quote in political during the 2024 election where I think it was one of the corporate leaders in”

New York City said like, you know, if it's a choice between like democracy and Donald Trump, most corporate leaders would choose like Donald Trump, right? Of course they will. This is like, you know, like the history human history, we know that like if the corporate class is forced to choose between like democracy and fascism, the corporate class will choose fascism if that means

protecting its power and money like this. That's always have. It would be fascist otherwise.

It's an axiom. It's like, it's like a law of nature. And so I think like the question now to me is can the Democrats say no to the money that controls their party? And I think it's actually a bigger question. It is a moral question, but I think we have to understand how complicated it is inside of a system of legalized, bribery and corruption. Because I think the moral answer is yes, they should. The answer is that people are craving that politics. I think the challenge is

how do you fund campaigns to win power with that if you bite the so-called hand that feeds you? Now obviously, I am not a proponent of like donor class politics. I'm the opposite.

“But I think it is like a fundamental question here. If you want to sever donor class politics”

from the Democratic Party, how can you do it? Well one answer is at the very high profile level, okay, US Senate races, mayor of New York, race, presidential races. Like top line races where you can get attention regardless, you know, if you have a certain threshold of money. I think you can have

candidates who break for you money. We just saw it. We did. The problem is you go one level down,

okay, to somebody running for Congress, somebody running for legislature. It is much harder to gain attention for voters without money. So money has those levels of politics locked down, which is a long way of saying, I do think people want an answer. The actual part of the big answer here is public financing of elections. I think you have forgotten in the New York mayoral race. And I feel like a broken record saying this. Why did Zoron mom donnie? How was he able to win that race?

Okay, my answer is he had a great message, super-tellogenic candidate, savvy, you know, good politics. Like, you know, he was his, his agenda is right in the middle of what people wanted. But Zoron mom Donnie would not have been a candidate, much less a winning candidate. Had New York City not had a public financing system of elections that provided him enough money

to be competitive in the first place. And I just think like, it sounds boring, but it is at the

part of the ruling. Well, it also, I mean, the themes that we've been talking about connect to, in the head of course, the fact that the donor class has the kind of power that it has as a result of a court that is beholden to a conservative. So, positively originalist philosophy that combines, not only with the unitary executive, but with this deeply misguided view of free speech, we talked in the episode about the court's decision today. So oddly and wrongly taking the first

amendment and intruding into an area of licensing and and licensing therapies that are potentially going to be dangerous on the grounds that it's a matter of free speech, a complete confusion. And of course, the other huge area that they've done that in Citizens United and in the case that came after

So to my mind, that has to be part of the solution, whether it's through public financing,

or through a direct assault on Citizens United and in particular on the lower court decision that enables super PACs, that kind of constitutional reform is part of the progressive story of looking out for people's daily lives and their economic well-being. I mean, one thing just to kind of bring us towards a close and David, I want to, you know,

“get your thoughts on this. I mean, I think the view that we've been crafting is one where”

we are worried about the self-couper, worry about the abuse of power, what better example than a war, and Congress is supposed to have the power to initiate war and yet that this president has initiated it with no discussion. And the Democratic Party and the next president has to think about how to reign in that abuse of power through constitutional reforms. And I think that connects two to the first amendment and yet to act robustly and to not be a weak president. I mentioned

Carter earlier in this episode as an example of somebody who did constrain his own power with the ethics and government act, but we can't get away from the fact that he's almost the poster child for a weak, seeming president, whether that's fair or not. That's certainly the legacy. So I mean, is this a way of summing it up, David? Is this a fair characterization of where we've

sort of arrived that, you know, the presidency is already so powerful that you can use it in so many

lawful ways that you can be robust in the best sense and yet not run into the dangers of dictatorship.

“I mean, FDR is an interesting and dangerous example in that I think there were moments in particular,”

he tried to fire famously the head of the Federal Trade Commission in order to basically do his bidding to destroy independent agencies in the way that is also a precursor of the attempt to reverse the case that stopped him. I'm for his executor. So I mean, is that a good characterization of this that there's already so much power within the presidency that we can walk and shoot government at the same time, see a robust president that also constrains himself some combination. I mean, I know you are a

film guy and you're always looking for, you know, Harry Metzalli meets the player or something.

I mean, so is this an example where, you know, we can have a Carter meets FDR without you serving the danger of authoritarianism without entering into that territory? Yes. So my my take is that first and foremost what we are suffering from is a Congress that is

“completely unassertive at all. It is not a serious entity in any way and I think that is like”

we're sort of talking around this problem. Right. The Congress has conceded so much power over so many years now in so many ways that it's created a vacuum that the president has filled. The presidency has filled. When it comes to, let's use the example you brought up hiring and firing at independent agencies. I think there's a problem when the Supreme Court, it could be saying this soon at the president can fire FTC officials, CFPB officials, consumer products safety commission officials,

officials at all the independent agencies that protect people. But the president cannot fire somebody at the federal reserve who hands out bailouts to bankers and I'm not picking on the specific federal reserve bank official. I'm just saying like I think we have to look at the throughline here. And the throughline that the court seems to be saying is the president gets hiring and firing power over everyone who can help actual people and gets no hiring and firing power over the federal

officials who help bankers or people in power. And I think that's a real problem. I think the fight over independent agencies is part of the natural push and pull between Congress. Like should a commissioner in independent agency get a five-year term that overlaps into a presidency or not. I think there's an interesting, like I could see kind of both sides. Like we just had an election. The president promised to do something. He needs to be able to put in place his people or her

people to do the things that they promised the public. Like I do think there is a democracy crisis issue there when we keep, we feel like we keep voting for presidents. And then we're not getting what we want. And the president can say well it's because I can't, I literally can't do the things I promise to do. So at one level I do see like the the small D democracy argument from some conservatives underneath there because I do think the democracy crisis when we really talk about it,

it is buying elections. It is concentrating power in the hands of one person. But it's also people feel like they're voting for change and they keep getting more of the same. And that is fundamentally

bigger point that a lot of these processes that make it harder to do things instantly

are designed to make sure that the public has given its consent in a real way, by the way, beyond just

“one election, right? Like when I think of the new deal, right? The new deal, it wasn't like it happened”

in four years and then FDR was like thrown out of office, right? It like the fact that it happened over that many elections, created a staying power and legitimacy for the institutions that were built and a consent of the government. Like if something has to take multiple elections to be put in place, a whole agenda, it really does mean it really does kind of guarantee that the public was bought in, right? Yeah. Like and I actually think that like that is what we should really want.

That is what we should be aspiring to. And I think when Democrats regain executive power,

the thought process should be, let me see what I can deliver on in my promises that I made using executive power without going out of control over the lines like Donald Trump. But also let me see

“not only what I can use executive power for, but how to enshrine that in more permanent ways”

in statute, in the next election to put in more of these things in place, right? Like it's got to be a longer-term project. Yeah. I love this way of concluding the weakness of Congress is a huge part of the story of why we've seeded so much power to the executive and why we've associated the idea of progress with the President acting in real frankly dangerous ways. And when you think of the long-term gains for the system, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Bodings Rights Act,

the Great Society, the New Deal, these are measures like all that, Medicare. Exactly. These are, you know, Obamacare. Yeah, exactly right. And they had three years after they passed it for it to become embedded in the culture and become safer. Yeah. And I mean, that is also how the system was designed to work. That it, you know, yes, the supposedly textual basis for the unitary executive is that the executive power is vested in one president. Well, the legislative

power is vested in a Congress and that's supposed to be the place where the people exert their will in order to create, as you say, not just temporary executive orders, but lasting legislation. And so I think whoever this next president is is going to have to, you know, these are really complicated issues. I appreciate this conversation. We've talked about the need for a president to act in a strong way to have energy the way that Hamilton talked about. And yet, there's a danger that

that seeds into dictatorship, into, into usurping the democratic process. And so the real trick for this next president, this is not an easy thing to accomplish. It's not to be weak in the way quarters at least perceived to seek legislation and to have the robustness of lasting change.

“And I think that message, that's what, as we have candidates on the show and senators,”

Congressmen, that's what I think we're going to be pushing them off. And can I add, please, you know,

one also note of hope. And I am not the most hopeful person. No, we're always trying to end

on hope. But I do think that there is a strong argument that because Trump has had to use executive authority almost exclusively on so many things, that it actually illustrates a core weakness in the sense that things that are created by executive theot can be rescinded by executive fiat. The fact that he is had to rely on executive idiots as opposed to trying to enshrine things in law. I mean, we still got a long way to go here, right? I mean, it's only the first, you know,

year and a half in. But the point is, is that like, I think him not getting as much on the actual books in terms of statutes. Right. I certainly think the court has done some very serious damage with its precedence that are going to survive past Donald Trump. But him not getting a lot of his agenda done in statute. There's like a silver lining that like, okay, some of the worst things can be dealt with pretty quickly because they're built on a sort of house of cards of executive orders rather than

price. Yeah. Great. Or we can clone FDR or find another charismatic aristocrat willing to be a class trader. Very good. Let's start looking. Great. Great David Sarota, what a pleasure to have you on the oath in the office. We hope to have you back with a wonderful discussion. John, you want to have the last word. I'm just so grateful to see Mr. Sarota, someone who has inspired me for so many years and keeps on finding new ways to push back and educate people. And

for joining us. And thanks for this excellent podcast. Everywhere these are subscribed to the Master

“Plan. Thanks. Thanks to both of you. Thank you. Thanks, David. See you soon. We want to thank David Sarota”

and Professor Brechniper. Thank you so much. I want to tell everyone now's the time when you should subscribe if you don't already. I'm sure this episode and tell your friends and write us we do answer your emails when we're not sneaking into the United States to have anchor babies and wait for them to be spies in 20 years. That really is one of the arguments they made in this birthright citizenship case, Corey. But a great episode all around. Thank you, Professor. I've

really enjoyed it, John. Thanks so much. As always, and to be joined by David Sarota, really things

fit together. We're getting at some of the core issues here. A president who threatens democracy in the ways that we're pushing back through no kings. Hopefully in litigation, our sponsor, the ACLU has been doing an amazing job. What an honor to be sponsored by them and pushing back

against this executive order and their litigation team has been superb. We'll continue to cover

that. And then also I love that we continue to talk about hope. That conversation really got

“at some of the details. You know, there is a tendency I think in both parties to think that the”

president of the United States has all the solutions. And if it's my person, then we should allow them to act as a dictator. And that is really what this podcast is about. It's about a more serious way of restoring our democracy, thinking about the power of Congress, thinking about the kinds of pieces of legislation that will both improve people's lives, but also stop authoritarian threats to democracy. And we'll continue to do that each week. John, what an honor to do it with you.

“We have a YouTube channel. If you want to watch us there, we have the oath in the office.”

Substack. Check that out. And you can find me on Blue Sky at Democracy Prof. John. Thanks so much. Thank you, Corey, and I'm on Substack as well. All the socials at John Figuelsing, my book is called Separation of Church and Hate. And we will see you guys next time on the oath in the office.