[MUSIC]
>> Welcome to a very special edition of the oath and the office.
I'm John Fueble saying, we're at war in the Middle East again, friends, not because Congress debated it, not because there was a clear and present danger, not because the American people demanded it, and not because the Joint Chiefs say there is any threat to us, to make some sense of this illegal misreglass, let's go to the star of our show, the author of the oath and the office, Brown University political science professor and the Supreme Court calls him the
Mac Cory Brechnighter, professor, good to see you this very strange week. >> Thanks so much, John, the fake praise gets more intense. >> It starts with the Supreme Court. >> The man was kicked out of war tank clan for being too hardcore, they don't know Cory,
let me say it, they don't know, come on now.
“>> Each week, I don't know if you could top the previous week, but I think you”
succeed, and it is a special addition, unfortunately, this is Presidentially declared war. You might think to yourself, well, war is declared by Congress, we're going to talk about that. It's also time, I think, that we talk, of course, about what's happening in the moment, but also do a deep dive into the War Powers Act, which governs much of what's happening, and what's going to happen over the next few weeks.
And so I'm looking forward to really talking to you, John, and doing my best to explain to listeners how this complicated law functions, what its purposes, how it was amended, unfortunately, to weaken Congress, and looking forward to some listener questions.
But before we get into that, John, I've got to just congratulate you because your amazing
book, Separation of Church and Hate, which we hear from listeners all the time, and I hear from listeners in person too, how much they love it, a book that really distinguishes between true Christianity and Christian nationalism, and uses the Bible in such an important way to criticize white nationalism and theocratic views, has won a major award, and that's from audible, for best, I understand, best non-fiction audio book period, that's a message that's
some of you have done. 2026 audio words, last night in New York City, I kind of felt like Ringo, you know, I'm just glad to be here, and I had to go to the serious XM studios, I was like, do I have to go to the Civil War Show, but I was exciting, it's my first audio book, and so I did not think I would win this, I beat Spinal Tap, I mean, I'm sorry, I'm Rob Reiner, it would be delighted at this,
I know, but I feel like they've made a mistake in the jury room, but thank you Professor, it's bad news in the world, and the destruction that we're going to talk about is, you know, worrying to say the least, and especially at the helm, led by this out-of-control president, but to have great news like this, which is so well deserved, congrats again, and on behalf of the so many listeners that I hear about, I know everyone is thrilled for you.
“You know, Professor, I think part of the gas lighting is they don't want people to feel joy,”
they want us to be the state of anxiety and panic all the time, and I say to folks on my serious XM show, almost every night, don't let these people take your joy away, despondency is privilege at a time like this, and it's so many constitutional crises, so I just tell everyone to please don't let them take away your joy, and as soon as I find the right medication cocktail, I look forward to having joy that I won't let them take away.
But right now, my neurosis are up to 11, Corey, this weekend, America, and Israel launched this illegal war and killed a leader of Iran. This happened 73 years after the CIA and British intelligence orchestrated the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected prime minister, Muhammad Mosadek in 1953, and I just want to say this because most media won't be reminding us, but that last time, America overthrew in a leader of Iran. That American led coup led directly
to the abuses of the Shah, the rise of the extreme religious conservative nut jobs running Iran, the 1979 hostage crisis happened directly as a result of America's actions, and all the abuse of the Iranian people we've witnessed for decades, President Eisenhower, the last Republican president to balance a federal budget with a surplus, by the way, it's been 70 years. He authorized Operation Ajax because Iran's democratically elected
prime minister, Mosadek, believed that the oil beneath the ground belonged to all Iranians, rather than Western oil companies, and this led to us staging the coup against this democracy installing the Shah, who became so Hitler-like in his cruelty that eventually,
“to a tormented populace, the fundamentalist lunatics seem like the only way out.”
And now 70 years later, we are bombing them after tearing up a nuclear deal that our military insists Iran was complying with. And then after bombing their nuclear facilities, obliterating was the word Trump used last fall, but now suddenly I guess either we were lying then or we're lying now. So there's a lot to unpack your quarry. Let's begin with the biggest one.
The Constitution gives Congress not the president, the power to declare war.
framers intend that little clause to accomplish? Well, I think too, especially as we talk
about fighting theocracies or fighting dictatorship, if that's really what we're about, we've got to look back to our founding documents because of course the declaration of independence is a revolution against monarchy and the Constitution is meant to be an alternative to monarchy. And one of the simplest places to start is with the divided power war power that the framers came up with. In British monarchy, the king initiates war or queen, the monarch initiates war
and carries it out. And what the framers quite brilliantly realized that they needed to do, and this is a lesson that we've forgotten, unfortunately, but need to come back to, is to divide that power up to give the power of initiating war not to the executive, not to the president, but to Congress and to give the power to carry it out, the power of commander and chief, to the president by dividing the war power in that way. They thought that things would be slowed
down when it came to the decision to go to war. And yes, they thought it would be tilted against war, it would have a default against really seeing how destructive war was, not just because of the obvious death that results from the horror of that, but because the entire domestic agenda they argued the framers would be swept up in an international conflict. And so whatever our goals were
at home, of protecting liberty or fighting poverty, that was being at risk, the second we go to war.
“And so that's why they divided the war powers up in that way. And as we'll get to,”
there was an attempt to refine after Nixon to revive these split war powers to revive the role of Congress, but it hasn't worked out as well as we would hope, especially this moment. Yeah, I want to get to what I think are the two biggest, starkest, dumbest lies. This administration is told in the midst of this campaign, but I gotta ask, I'm thinking historically, professor, if a president launches large-scale military strikes without any kind of congressional authorization,
under what circumstances, if any, could that be constitutional? Only if we've just been attacked,
right? No, it's more complicated than that. And certainly that's one example that even under
the Constitution, that defensive war, say America was attacked by a foreign adversary and the president responded in self-defense, right? I think that's pretty clearly within the president's commander
“in sheet of power. Now, you asked the question in an important and subtle way. Are there some”
uses of force that fall short of full war that might be allowable by the president without consent of Congress, and the answer according to the War Powers Act is yes, and there are really two iterations of the War Powers Act that I'll talk about, but I'll just start out most simply about what the purpose is. So Nixon, of course, there was a long battle about whether or not the Gulf of Tompkin Resolution was authorization for the Vietnam War, but aside from that, the incursions into
the loss, for instance, and in Cambodia, were widely regarded by the American public and by Congress as a legal incursions. And so, for that reason, Congress actually has a moment of sticking up for itself in a strong, strong way at the end of Nixon's presidency, not only in the impeachment proceedings, which lead to his resignation, but in the passage of what's known as the commonly as the War Powers Act. At the end of his presidency, he vetoes it. Of course, he doesn't want limited
War power, and there is so much support for this that there's an override in Congress. And what the War Powers Act's purpose is is to reclaim for Congress that power to declare war, but they are
“focused on the question that U.S. What about conflicts where the president acts short of total war?”
And in those instances, they put a time limit. They said there could be a 30 or even 60 day period in which will allow these conflicts. But after that, the time's up. You absolutely, according to this law, and this is what they thought was reclaiming the power, needed the president needed Congress to authorize that action. And so, any immediate emergency action, for instance, that the president's knowledge requires him to make that decision of a use of for a short of total war.
You have 60 days. And that War Powers Act was used in both Iraq wars and in Afghanistan. There was an authorization under the War Powers Act of this use of force. Not a declaration of war. The idea was these were action short of war. And we can talk about that. But they work. That was the idea. One other quick thing, which is Congress now, I know we'll get into this later, but I do want to mention that Congress did have another tool that it used. It said, look, Congress can at any
point with just both houses of Congress stop any military action immediately. Now, that was later changed to require two thirds, and we'll talk about that. But those were the two, you know,
That's how they worked it out.
frankly in the way they thought, but they were trying. And that's the kind of thing when we talk about hope that we need to be talking about. How do we fix this thing? Okay, well, this is the part where I asked the dumb questions then. I need you to help me explain this. Yeah, no, so I have many, don't worry. And, and folks, this is a lot sexier than it sounds, I promise. Corey, what was what was Congress specifically trying to correct after Vietnam when it passed the war power's
“resolution? I think they were trying to correct the fear that the presidency was becoming an”
imperial presidency, which led to two problems. And this is directly linked to Watergate.
It led to illegal wars and to Congress basically being pushed out of the question of whether or
not we're going to use the military abroad. And Nixon wasn't fond of consulting Congress. And so they're fighting back on that front. And I think they're also worried about more generally dictatorship that if this president becomes an imperial president, he might shut down civil liberties at home. And we know that, for instance, as I show in my book, the presence in the people that he was doing a lot of that domestic repression ordering basically illegal criminal shutdowns of his opponents,
like Daniel Ellsberg. Yeah, and so there would be this 60-day clock plus a 30-day withdrawal period, right? The resolution note requires notifying Congress within 48 hours. And then if it's gone wrong, if they want to stop it after a presidential veto, it would require a two-thirds vote to override, right? I was going to say this is where it gets complicated. And I want to go into the weeds on this,
“because I think it's worth it. It is a more important issue than constraining the president's”
war power and reviving Congress. I'm not sure that there is. A Congress that refuses to take that responsibility as a more important issue. But I get what you're saying and go on. Right. Well, you know, part of it is because of what happened here and what I'm about to explain that if the law was set up in a different way, it would be much easier for Congress to act. And I think we might have
even seen it already. So here's what gets weird. And please ask me questions. As you know,
my mom says often I'm fond of quoting her that there are no stupid questions. And as every listener tells me, John, your questions are never stood up. So I don't think we're any danger of anything like that. I'm worried of the stupid question. But this is complex stuff that I'm desperate to explain to people, because I think it does explain our current moment. So it begins with Congress saying a very simple thing. We're going to reclaim our power in this way. You have the 60 days,
but if two houses of Congress, meaning a majority of the House and a majority of the Senate, majority only say stop this thing. We don't agree. That's the end of the war. That's the original War Powers Act. Now, in the 1980s and for reasons that I'm hoping to even get really into the weeds on, Congress changes its mind. And it goes from uping the power of Congress to actually surrendering it. How does it do it? It changes the majority vote of the House, majority in the Senate,
to require essentially two thirds, because it says we're going to change the rule. A majority of both houses can stop a war if, now notice this, John, follow me here, if the President agrees. And if the President disagrees, you need two thirds. What do you think is going to happen when a President has action that a Congress is going to stop? Of course, he's going to disagree and veto the resolution. And so as Democrats talk about things now, the number you're going to hear
about is two thirds. That was a conscious choice of the Congress in the 1980s during Reagan.
“I think it was 83 that they changed the rule from majority of both houses to two thirds.”
There's a reason for that that has to do with the Supreme Court. But the bottom line is,
they messed it up. I'm not going to curse because we go for clean on this show, but they definitely asked up the war powers resolution by literally handing over the war power to the President. The 60 days is still there, thankfully. And in 60 days, the President is supposed to stop this thing if he hasn't gotten authorization. Otherwise, it's obviously an illegal war. But short of that, Congress used to have the power to have just a majority of both houses stop. But we've got to go back to that.
And we get through this disaster. It's got to be priority number one. We've talked to Ted Lou and Sheldon White House will continue to have members of Congress on the show. And that's one of the things that I really want to push them on. Well, I want to talk about the first of the big lie. Maybe the biggest lie we've been given, which is that this war, this attack, this preemptive strike by America keeps Americans safe. And this is the oldest line in the playbook.
We had to bomb these people for safety, defensive bombing, even the Pentagon briefers told Congress there was no evidence of a preemptive strike from Iran coming. There was no women in attack coming. The Pentagon not headseth, but the Pentagon seems to have thrown Trump under the bus on this one. And yet suddenly, we're supposed to believe missiles were seconds away from hitting Cleveland. The Intel assessment said Iran was years away from an ICBM that could reach the US years.
I think in Epstein panic time, that means drop everything now.
which is exactly what Bush and Cheney's rationale was for invading an occupying Iraq.
I'll remind everyone, Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower said preventative war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I could not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing. So I mean, Corey just seems to me, like if this keeps America safe, it's like setting your house on fire to keep your family warm. Presidents often justify unilateral force because of an imminent threat. It's going to be debated for a long time whether this was, constitutionally speaking,
how narrow is that exception supposed to be? It's right to say that if there really were missiles flying at the United States that the president would be within his rights to act defensively, but as that turns out not to be true, that rationale disappears. And it looks like it was a misguided
attempt. I mean, big surprise by this president to mislead us in a lot of thinking it wasn't illegal.
I will say about Bush and Cheney that yes, exactly that was the rationale for war. It turned out to be false. They likely knew it was false. And all of that is horrible, but not to defend Bush and Cheney, although in several moments they look good compared to Trump. It was an authorization and a rack of the use of force. And I don't agree with that, especially in retrospect, but at least Congress took the responsibility to act, whereas here there's an attempt to completely
“circumvent them. And that's why it's so important that Congress step up, especially after the”
60 days, if the president continues to engage in this war. Arguably, the 60 days is being generous to Trump because those who drafted the war powers resolution were very clear. And John, this is one of the really important things that you said early on, that the 60 day leeway was in action, military action, military force short of war. And I don't think that's what we're talking about here. This looks like a major war that the president's launched. And so in my opinion,
there's a good argument that actually zero days that he needed the authorization even with the war powers act. So if intelligence assessments show, there was no imminent attack coming. And again, these are the guys who were boasting that they obliterated Iran's nuclear program less than six months ago. I think they obliterated what the word obliterated means, but if the assessment show no attack coming, doesn't that significantly weaken an article to justification here?
“Definitely. The idea that he sort of doesn't need Congress because he's acting defensively, you know?”
Yeah, if he thought he was going to try it, that 80% he was my student, Pete Hexeth, and I'm still on that. You've got to stop dropping that factoid, Corey. I wouldn't brag about that if I were you. I'm definitely not bragging. I'm apologizing. I'm feeling guilty. No, I'm not reminded. Remind everyone. That's swine as I really remind. Ivy League anonymous is the biggest problem in our government. These guys, the Senator John Kennedy.
He was he was up a road scholar. And now he talks like a man who steals chickens. No, let's out them is sting Ivy League. But go on. I mean, I'm so horrified as I see what Hexeth is doing in the idea that I likely was his TA. It does harm me. The other thing that that haunts me is that you know, Hexeth here is the adult in the room, oddly. I mean, not that he's an adult in any way. But that Trump just tries this out, right? Why? And then it exposed for that. So I think we're done with that.
There's no idea that there was some imminent attack on the United States. And so now we're in the
“realm of is it the provision of the War Powers Act that requires authorization within 60 days?”
Or is it a kind of full-out war that would have required it after, well, no days that it would have required it in advance. Either way, this president is almost certainly acting illegally. It doesn't have plans after the 60 days to stop the way he's talking about it. So just so we're totally clear, deterrence preemption. That would be fine. They're not, they're not. Yeah, they're not constitutionally equivalent to repelling an actual
real attack. A real attack. And I'm litigating this now, Corey. I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'm going to be, I'm going to be the whole war crime strategy. But there was really an imminent attack coming against the United States, regardless of whether it was launch. I'd say yes, the president was within his rights to the war offensive war. And that would be legal. But that's not what happens here.
Yeah. Now, the second big lie, because in 230 in the morning, because all great
constitutional moments happen at 230 in the morning, Donald Trump posted the bombing announcement like he's dropping a new sneaker brand. And then two hours later, at 430 AM, he posts a ran interfered in the 2020 and 2024 elections. So there it is. Now, I guess war Corey is apparently retroactive campaign customer service, right? They hurt by poll numbers. But this is the escalation, far in interference, becomes national security, national security, becomes emergency powers,
emergency powers, becomes we need to rethink how elections work. And so we know what the, the, the right, that's the scheme that's going on here. I want to ask you about the legislative veto,
Originally Congress had envisioned that they could stop hostilities with the ...
We mentioned it briefly. But how did the Supreme Court rejecting the legislative veto reshape how these war powers are enforced? John, I just love that you do this podcast with me, because I don't think that any podcast that are as widely Listen to as Oxford talking about the legislative veto. But if you want to understand why the threat that you were just talking about, which is, and let's not be soft about it. The threat of dictatorship, the second that the president
assumes that the power to launch wars and initiate it are his alone, that emergency powers might include things like suspending elections. We're not in the realm of democracy, we're in the realm
“of dictatorship. And that's why it was so important to that Congress, at the end of Nixon's presidency,”
to say, not only do we not live in a dictatorship, all you need is 50 percent, the Congress declares war, and it can reclaim those war powers with 50 percent of both houses. So why did they change all of this in 1983 to require two thirds? To make it essentially, it's almost impossible, I should say, to get two thirds to override a veto. In the end of Nixon's presidency, it was so unpopular, it was possible. But right now, I hope we'll get to that moment, we're not there
now. Why did they do it? Why were they so weak? And the answer is that there is this obscure case
called Chata. It's not obscure if you study constitutional law. Anyway, here's the long in short of it. And yes, interrupt me if I'm a failure to know it. The long in the short of it is that the technique that Congress has used to reclaim its power, which is commonly called the legislative veto. And there are over 200 examples of this in legislation where we'll use two houses of Congress, a majority vote to stop a president, that anywhere you find it in these 200 plus laws,
it's essentially all unconstitutional. That's the argument in this case called Chata. And I can tell you about Chata. Chata is a non-citizen who is told he can remain in the country by at the time the immigration service, the INS. And he's overridden by a veto from Congress, a legislative veto told he has to leave the country. So the Supreme Court, they said, "No, the guy can stay." It's stripping away the power of Congress in 200 plus laws,
including and Congress agreed to do this when it comes to the simple need of 50% of the house, 50% of the Senate that legislative veto to stop a president. And all over the place, Congress in 1983, and a lot of instances gets rid of its power under the legislative veto. They didn't even try to fight back. There would have been ways to fight back, to argue it, to instruct the American
“people about why Congress's power is so important. Instead, they gave it all up. They just handed”
it over to the president, including in the most important place the war powers. Well, we have to
hit a break and we're going to get in trouble. We'll be right back in just a moment. 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, and 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, or at least how it's supposed to work, and you'll hear a lot of surprising stories along the way. Hosted by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capoteche, 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.
Welcome back to the oath in the office. I'm John Fugel, saying it's a very special operation epic theory episode at Cory. By the way, can I just say operation epic theory does not sound like foreign policy? It sounds like a video game. You have to have plays in the office between jealous shots. You know what I mean? Like does an epic theory sound like the energy drink that cash-but-telt shugs because he thinks it'll finally make him popular? I hear epic
“theory. I think of Donald Trump raging against his own blocked colon, but that's what they're”
calling it. These are non-serious people. So where are we now? I mean, as of this taping, six Americans have already been killed. Three F-15 fighters have been downed all by our allies in friendly fire. Three F-15 fighters is more money than Elon Musk claims Doge saved our budget. Okay, so that's where these guys are at. Beyond the war power's resolution, what is Congress's most powerful tool? I mean, the power of the purpose of Congress funding for an operation
that could restrain the president. But are there any historical examples where funding restrictions limited military action outside of ice in Minneapolis?
You know what we're always trying to do on this podcast is to talk about the truth of where we are.
Things are really not good.
using the war powers in the most frightening way possible. Totally disregarding the American
public and the representatives in Congress. That's not a good thing. And we've been honest about it. But now what you're starting to ask about and what we're getting into is the hope. You know, what can we do to fight back? And I'll mention several things. Funding is one of them.
“But the most important thing, I think, that we need to start getting on the agenda is Congress”
reclaiming its power in a new war powers act. Here's an easy way to do it. Forget about this sixty-day period. Put it at zero. Congress has a power to declare war. That is, by the way, just two houses and a majority nobody doubts that. And get away from all of this convoluted two-thirds, sixty-day, all the war powers act as well intentions as it was. It was a failure.
So the first thing that Congress needs to do is to reassert its authority. Now, do they have
the votes now? No, but they can start to talk about it. The second thing is funding. If he, let's just look at the scenario where this is most realistic, because I don't think it's going to happen now. But say Trump defies Congress after sixty days. And there's not support. There hasn't been an authorization of the use of force, which I don't think there will be. If we're sixty days out, you know, that's a prediction. I could be wrong. But if Congress does its job,
there won't be. Sixty days out, he doesn't have the other. There is no question. It is a legal under any way of seeing it. Congress absolutely needs to cut off funding. And, you know, whether they're willing to do that or not, they have an obligation to do it. A vital thing,
of course, is impeachment, which we could get into. Well, let's get into it, because I mean,
sorry, justifying a war publicly on grounds that are contradicted by classified intelligence briefings. I mean, that's beyond a political problem. That's a constitutional violation. And look, I'm a big fan of normalizing drawing up articles of impeachment every week. And I mean, like the very fact that these Democrats haven't introduced articles of impeachment against
“Pete Hague Seth or Christy Nome is kind of disgusting to me. I think we've got to start”
actually rattling the cage here and making these people a little bit afraid of what's going to happen. I know they, they seem quite confident. They can steal the midterms. But I mean, this brings us to this issue that is another really, really sexy bit of law, which is the political question, doctrine, because I mean, obviously impeachment is already constitutionally grounded. It's not politically realistic. But I want to ask you about the political question, doctrine, because it sounds
like another thing that we just made up. I know that courts historically have avoided war powers disputes using the political question, doctrine. Why and how, Corey? Well, sometimes the courts refuse to get involved in a conflict, even though they might have an opinion. One issue, for instance, in political question concerns impeachment and how the Senate trial, as you said, just to follow up on that, that it's not just that the Constitution gives the power to Congress to impeach
and remove a president, 50% to impeach in the House and 2/3 to remove. But also to remove executive officers, like Pete Hague Seth and Christy Nome. So in the example in which we're at 60 days and there's no authorization of force, absolutely, Pete Hague Seth should be impeached and removed by the Senate, even if they don't have the vote. So the political question, doctrine, one way into it is to understand that when it comes to impeachment, the courts have said hands off. We're not going to
get involved, for instance, in the rules on the Senate trial. And there was a case about a judge, also named Nixon, not Richard Nixon, but Judge Nixon. And the courts said, you know, this is not the kind of issue in which we're going to get involved. They've also in war powers made the argument that this is too complicated. If there's a dispute about whether or not a law is legal between Congress and the president, we're going to have our hands off. One of the things I'd love to see in
a new war powers act is to change that, to make it clear that if the war is illegal, that absolutely
“the courts need to be involved. And it's been a failure, I think, this political question doctrine.”
But that's the worry that even if the war is illegal after 60 days to get down to it, you would hope that the courts would intervene there unlikely to do so. So we're not going to hear this on the corporate media because, hey, ratings, but there's no constitutional requirement that a president has to demonstrate the independent US national interest is at stake, right? The president doesn't have to prove that the national interest is threatened. But if a president is linking military
action that's already illegal to bogus claims of foreign election interference, I mean, that's pretty terrifying. I've already said on this show, I believe he's going to try and cut a deal with Maduro where Maduro gets a pardon from prison for saying that Venezuela hacked our election in 2020. But I mean, this is about the upcoming midterms. This is a lot of setup, but could a president legally alter federal election rules, even laterally, under a national security rationale?
No, absolutely not. And there I would hope the courts would get involved because while the
Question of war itself might be a political question, and when that they're n...
the election law is not. Our election law is, for instance, controlled by local government, and when he says he wants to nationalize elections, the idea that he's going to just step in, unilaterally, and change the rules. No, these things are governed by state and by loading rights act and other federal provisions, and courts absolutely need to enforce that. Now, you've seen him willing to
cheat. I mean, we had an attempted insurrection that should have barred them from office in the first place.
He was in both times. He was impeached. Both times he was impeached for trying to cheat in the same election. Both he certainly did that, and Jack Smith had indicted him for his role in January 6. So the idea that he's going to illegally, not legally, try to assert this election is very possible. He could do it in other ways too, aside from, you know, just suspending them or something that's obviously illegal. For instance, we've talked about Isolot on this show, and he could deploy
“Isolot to intimidate people at polling stations. That I think is realistic as an option that he might”
engage in. Is that legal? No. No. He might do it anyway. I would hope courts would stop him. You can't use. There's no power of Isolot to stop and intimidate voters. That's certainly illegal,
and that's certainly violation of the first amendment. An election law, but I would hope there
that the courts would stop him. By the way, you know, I don't want to, we talked at length about the terrorist case, and there, you know, we have this coalition of six people who are not going to stand up for at least obvious usurpations of the law. And they did that in the terrorist case, and I'd hope that we'd see those same six here. I'm not counting on Kevin O'Lito or Thomas to do anything. That's reasonable, but the six I'm hoping. Yeah, I mean, I hope so too. I don't have
any high expectations for any of the dirty six. So the framers, it seems like they envision Congress as this democratic emergency break, because war should require public accountability.
“I mean, if members of Congress sued, would they have standing? Could service members”
challenge the legality of deployments? You know, I'd like to see these suits for sure. And let me say, we definitely have a dirty three. We have a clean three, and then what do we have like a moderately dirty? And no, John Roberts caused all of this, Corey, John Roberts caused all of this. Yes, and I'm not going to argue. By the way, I just need to say, I had this fight on my show the other night. John Roberts is why women are bleeding out in their cars in hospital ER parking lots.
John Roberts is why the voting rights act was gutted, and they're doing all of these voter ID laws to make it harder for Americans to exercise or write John Roberts's white Donald Trump believes he is a king, because John Roberts thinks America missed having a king. So yeah, I don't get all this like John Roberts, he it's good that he was forced to sit in the front row and be healthy, but he has unleashed on the rest of us, because he's trumped to the bone this filthy
aristocrat. I'm sorry, man. I don't let him off the hook for any of this. Yeah, I guess what I would say is, you know, and you, of course, you know, in our listeners now that I've talked about the immunity case in the way that it's really brought about, well, we're on the verge of a coup, a destruction of constitutional crisis as a good thing because there's conflict of coup is when the president's won and Roberts immunity case did a lot voting rights privacy. It's decimation
of our government. The question is whether or not there is in the way that you are seeing with the other three a total capitulation, in every case, even the most extreme, and the tariffs at least raises the issue of whether or not, and in the case I'm going to talk about whether or not there are five votes to stop them. So, yes, members of Congress can seek standing and they often have on grounds that their fundamental powers under the Constitution are being harmed
in the event, for instance, in which he continues to use the use of force after 60 days. Yeah, they take the case. There's possibility that they could take it and then say there's standing, but use this political question doctrine to say it's beyond their control. That's likely what would happen, but at least there would be a stand taken by Congress, at least there would be a line drawn, and at least we would start to educate the American people about why we need this
new war powers act that I keep preaching about. You know, Corey, this is also scary. I want
something comforting and familiar, like the Republican Party covering up powerful child rapists.
We got to take a break, but let's go back to Camp Epstein because they hauled Bill and Hillary Clinton in front of the Congress this week, and I have many questions for you about this testimony. Do you
“mind shifting gears dramatically? I think that's part of the story, and that's what we're trying”
to do here at each week. Tell the truth. It's really true because all of this bomb's going off and around, and I'm still not distracted. We'll be right back in just a moment. This is the oath in the office. Welcome back to the oath on the office. Hey, we got some some listener mail, but before we get there, Professor Brecht's nighter on a completely different
Topic, or maybe not, Bill and Hillary Clinton were brought in front of Congre...
for show. The Clintons wanted it to be broadcast on TV, and the Republicans decided to release
little clips, and to distract from the reality that Donald Trump and Pam Bondy have broken the law every day since December 19th, 2025 to protect child rapists. When Congress subpoenas former presidents for political figures for testimony, what constitutional standards govern that authority? This was very much a first, at least in our lifetime, wasn't it? Well,
“I mean, the fact is that we've seen this before. The house is not really doing anything to”
investigate Epstein when it comes to, in particular, Hillary Clinton, I should say, is the person I'm focusing on. They're trying to put on a show, and they were trying to get clips of her embarrassing yourself that as they now are, would be released on video, Nancy Mays, for instance, putting this all over her social media. And Hillary Clinton said it so well, and her statement,
she never even met Epstein. What are you doing? Asking her to testify about this thing that she
knows nothing about, and of course it isn't about the victims. It isn't about pursuing the truth of getting these files out. It's about trying to somehow cast blame on this woman, Hillary Clinton, who has nothing to do with any of it. And so it just was a travesty. I thought though that she just handled herself so well in her statement, which just said, look, this is a real crime. And we need to find out who the perpetrators were. One obviously is in the White House, who's been
so connected to Epstein, and yet isn't being investigated. It has been accused of crimes within the files. So why are you bringing me out? And it reminds me of the kind of show hearings that you had during the McCarthy era, and we're just trying to blame people for there was a real issue about communism in the world, and yet trying to turn it internally to perceive the enemies.
“I had nothing to do with it, and that's what you're seeing here. Well, and if I may, I mean,”
generally speaking, I'm not a Democrat, but I think if the evidence proved that both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump abused children with Epstein, Democrats would reject Bill Clinton, right, Republicans would reject the evidence. So that's what's going on here. And my biggest question of all of this is now that they've done it. And half of me Corey thinks that the Clinton's actually did this to take one for the team historically, because now is there not precedent
to subpoena President Donald Trump, and first lady Melania Trump, who was quite close personal
friends with convicted child rapist Elaine Maxwell. I mean, this really seems like the only reason the Clinton's would have ever subjected themselves to this nonsense. I do think that's, you know, I love it that we're finding hope and even these horrible stories. And the fact that Bill Clinton agreed to testify does set a precedent. He didn't try to invoke immunity. He said, you know, yeah, I'm not above the law. You're just opinionating me. Here you go, even though you know,
there were reasons certainly for Hillary Clinton to not show up. And at some point, I did see some of the hearing breakdown, where she was being asked for instance about pizza gate, and she rightly showed outrage in saying that this is ridiculous. And an insult to the institution of the Congress that you're even asking about it. And she would have been within rights to walk out at that point, because it was totally inappropriate and abusive. But the fact that they did show up, you know, it starts to
bring a precedent. This is hard to imagine. But in this period that I was talking about in which the War Powers Act was passed. And these legislative laws using the legislative veto were passed. In particular, many of them during the Ford administration, including the Emergencies Act, Ford himself went to try to show the idea that a president is not above the law and testifies the support of the House of Representatives. So, you know, I like that idea that his grotesque
is the spectacle was that maybe there's some coming back. I didn't want to say something about Clinton. Absolutely right. If it's shown that Clinton committed crimes along with Epstein, and I think there's good reason, by the way, to criticize Clinton on many fronts, including his behavior in regard to Monica Lewinsky, regardless of whether or not the investigation was justified. I thought that was an unfair thing to bring up. I thought they were just doing that to play
violent. Yeah, I'm not saying it. They should have brought it up at the hearing, but I'm saying in the hindsight of history, that wasn't a great moment for the presidency and for Clinton himself. But certainly to go to your point, if he did commit these crimes, we should be condemning him.
“Of course, of course you should, and he's for sure. And yet as we see the crimes of Trump,”
and we see, by the way, his promise to not get us involved in endless wars. And yet, doing precisely that in Iran, the idea of cognitive dissidents, that psychologists talk about seems apt here, that many people, and I should say, you know, this isn't a partisan thing necessarily,
Although we're seeing it really in a horrible way in the Republican Party.
dissidences, that sometimes, when the evidence contradicts what you believe, rather than changing
“your beliefs, as you should, you change actually your perception of the evidence, you lie about”
the evidence to yourself. And that's what's going on. It's a national cognitive dissidence, in which the evidence is showing us again and again that this person who promised no endless wars is engaging in them, that QAnon, which promised to hunt down the worst child molesters, now have been shown to touch the Republican Party. And rather than amend the belief that this is my party, we've seen so many Republicans, you know, just say this president is fine and, you know,
come up with excuses for disregarding evidence. Yeah, that's one of the worst things about the moment. The red hats have decided that war in pedophilia are totally okay now, Cory, and I don't understand why political figures would voluntarily testify, like the Clintons did even when they're not strictly required, but I'm kind of delighted now that there's a precedent for compelling testimony from presidents and their wives. I think that that's actually really called for in this
case, because I'm betting the farm on the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. I think the American
people deserve to have another First Lady put her hand in a Bible and tell the truth about this
stuff. Anything else, professor? Anything we want to get to listen or mail, but is there anything we haven't covered yet? I was just saying, you know, it's a tough moment for the country, you know, we're on the brink of a presidentially declared war and we've talked about ways of stopping it
“and ways in which it's arguably illegal. And yet we're still finding the hope, so that's why we're”
doing this podcast and thanks to the listeners for listening every week and yeah, I'm anxious to get to listen or questions. I just, if I was Bill Clinton, the only thing I would have said was, I've called for all the files to be made public and transparent every day and Donald Trump is still protecting the child rapist. That's the only answer you have to give to every single comment. All right, Valerie, from New York writes, given the influence of people like Elon Musk,
funding people like Vance, Peter Tiel, in this case, the anti-Christophician auto, are we doomed to see the destruction of democracy? This question is very close to my heart, Corey, I do believe that private financing of elections is the square root of all of our problems, that big money in politics is the square root of all the problems that we refuse to fix. Do you think we're doomed to see the destruction of democracy? Did citizens united
seal the deal? Well, the anti-federalists, who I'm fond of quoting and looking at, warned about a lot of things that could destroy the country, and one of them was all a carcass, and in a system in which there was massive amounts of money, and the country was large, that you just might get not democracy, but wealthy people destroying our system. And are we seeing that at this point? We are seeing Donald Trump and his cronies and I worry about JD Vance, not just influencing
in the sense of helping their own businesses, but with these wacky ideas that you get on the right, that Valerie is really alluding to, the idea of Peter Tiel, the Greta Thurmburg, is the Antichrist,
“and that the worst thing in the world is environmental protection, which he sees as the agenda of”
the Antichrist, but because he has so much money that can then be funneled in, because of citizens united, and through corporate dollars, through dark money, which is Jay Meyer, I recommend her book and others. It is a moment in which we have to see that money in politics is not just some issue of free speech that we have to protect democracy by creating a system of elections and which money is at least minimized, even if it has some role.
And citizen United has found that hard to do, and so those who predicted that it wasn't going to have a role, it has, in citizens United doesn't itself protect super PACs. It's a lower court decision that does so, so trying to get litigation to overturn that decision. My former law professor Larry Lastic has been a great activist on that front, would be one way to do it, certainly legislation to overturn that decision to get rid of super PACs would be another. And, you know, if the
Supreme Court stops us, is it my citizens united, it can be narrowed, it can be overturned, that's unlikely, but certainly could be narrowed. We have to start to talk about an amendment, and I've long supported an amendment and held a conference at Brown with local legislatures. And, you know, it's a small step, but I'm proud to say that Rhode Island as a result of our efforts,
including Leslie, was a big part of this. It was the first state legislature to vote to ask
Congress to return a constitutional amendment to overturn citizens united. That's not going away, even if Trump goes away. That's the kind of issue that we have to turn to as we start to talk about how to, not just reform our democracy, but save it. Why it's almost like the founding aristocrats who designed a system where only wealthy, land-owning white males were allowed to vote. Game of Sir Rick System, Corey. It almost seems like the system's been rigged from the very
Beginning.
aristocracy versus democracy. Conservative versus liberal is how they keep us fighting each other, so the aristocracy can rule everything in a world where for criminal activities, the wealthy people pay fines. Well, that's not a punishment for the wealthy. It's a punishment for the poor. Rich who break the law of fine, not a problem. And in a world where money is speech, it seems like the system is rigged to give the wealthiest more speech. But I don't think it's by design. You know,
the constitution and the eighth amendment, bands, for instance, excessive fines. There's no
citizens united provision or talking about money in politics. And the first amendment
talks about free speech. And there are ways of respecting free speech while still curbing the influence of money and politics and not allowing for abusive secret funding of elections. So,
“I think, you know, the anti-federal has had a point. And that's what you're looting to from the”
beginning they did think it was rigged. And they've certainly been proven right in many ways. But let's not forget, too. We've had moments of fighting back. We talked at length about the War Powers Act that was an important moment, even though it didn't work. In the end, McCain fine-goed. Of course, is an extensive campaign finance legislation. John McCain, Russ Feingol, to actually interview the rest fine-goed when I was doing past the mic for
serious XM. We should have him on this show. You know, I think we've got to sort of gear up and see that the anti-federal's warning is absolutely important, but that we can overcome it. We can save this democracy. Okay, here's the question, dear to my heart. Philip up, asks, "The recent ham sandwich incident. We're a citizen through a sandwich at a National Gartsman in DC and a grand jury fail to indict seems to be a great example of effective resistance.
Is this a roadmap for the way forward? Add if so. How can citizen safely and broadly adopt this template to make the authoritarians unravel? I just want to come out and say that I enjoy
wasting food as much as any privileged first-world white person. I don't think that throwing
ham sandwiches is a legitimate form of protest when there are country people on earth and I also
“then Corey, I don't consider it. I mean, I think it's obvious you're not going to indict a guy”
for throwing a ham sandwich, but they're looking for any excuse to come down. I mean, the greatest miracle of the Minnesota resistance was that no one threw a rocket ice because they just wanted an excuse to kill people. But what do you think about the ham sandwich incident and what kind of precedent will that bring us for the years to come? You know, grand jury is throughout American history of refused to indict in cases of abuse and it goes way back. One of the things that Samuel
Chase, the abuse of Supreme Court justice who, with John Adams, worked to shut down free speech
in the sedition act, was impeached partly because he tried to manipulate grand jury's refused to
listen to him into indicting political opponents. And so, you know, when it comes to the prosecutions of James and call me, if they continue with them, they've been chastened by judges. If they find a judge like a lean cannon, you know, type judge, a Trump appointee or somebody sympathetic to actually move forward with these indictments. My faith really is in these grandjuries that American citizens know it and they're intuition when they see tyranny. And, you know, in many ways at this moment
in time, I trust grandjuries. I trust citizens more than I trust public officials. So it's a great example that, you know, when these abusive prosecutions are attempted that we still do have this important institution guaranteed by the Constitution. And it's another place that I have faith that no, we're not done in yet. We don't have a dictatorship. We're still fighting chance of keeping our democracy. Professor, I am so grateful that we went deep and nerdy on all this today. The American people.
“Not on the American people. I think it made it clear that through polling, before Trump's attack,”
they didn't want to new Middle East war. The polling after the attack revealed that only about 25% of Americans support this illegal attack. That's fewer people than support Donald Trump. And it's great. The president's, you know, partying with his rich donors at Mara Logo, well, all this is happening. But as you know, kill people and blow stuff up and hope it sorts itself out. So we look good is not really a long-term strategy. And just before we go,
I just want to ask you, when a president stops feeling obligated to explain war to the people, war becomes not a national policy. It's an executive impulse. There's no doctrine. There's no vote. There's no clearly defined end. How do you see this playing out in the weeks to come? If this thing is not wrapped up quickly? Well, you know, one thing we didn't talk about is the requirement. And we've mentioned it, but we didn't talk about it as at length, as some of other issues.
But it is the simple requirement that the president informed Congress when he's launching a military attack. And he did try to do that with a few Congress people, but did not inform the whole Congress. And he's really disregarding the most fundamental duties he's trying to become a dictator. And we're seeing that again and again. So that's one thing I think we need to talk more about is accountability
To Congress.
this ongoing self-coo, this attempt of Trump to crown himself a monarch, that, you know, the
“surpatient of Congress is a big part of that story. And my hope is that we will begin to see”
those congressmen fight back and we'll continue to have members of Congress. I should say too,
just looking forward. We have Stacey Abrams an amazing figure standing up to this president.
We have Justice Breyer, who offers. We talked about Scalia, the main opponent of Scalia is going to be here with us on this show. That's going to be an amazing moment. And I look forward to those
“discussions. And I look forward to joining you and having the listeners listen in and send”
their questions as we fight back against this attempt at tyranny. Professor Breyer Schneider,
I want to thank you for the podcast, Taren of the show where we number three, we won three last week. Mike Paul, if you didn't hear it, check it out. He ran it. The government, right? podcast. I should say too, you'll hear an ad for Mike show. He's going to run ads for our show. It's a nice partnership. Well, I'm literally excited about the ads at this point.
“Corey, what's the best way for our listeners to follow you and keep up with your work throughout the week?”
You can find the author in the office of Substack. It's a newsletter where we talk about the stories that we've covered on the show, but also linked to more information. And there was a lot. This time, I love John that we went so deep in things like the legislative veto. And you could read more about that in the newsletter. You can find me on Blue Sky as Democracy Prof. And John want to thank you, not just thank you, but also congratulate you again on the best non-fiction audio
book of the year, amazing accomplishment. Thank you, professor. My book is called Separation of
Church in Hate, a St. Persons Guide to Take It Back The Bible from Fundamentals, Fascists, and flock fleeting for rods. On serious sex and every night, on the progress channel, if you don't have serious, we are a free podcast every morning. The John, few will sing podcast, Corey Brech, Knitters, one of our regulars. And I want to thank Wendy and Beowulf and everyone else who tells me what Mike's not working and keeps the podcast running. Thank you, professor. I want to thank
everyone for writing in and we'll see you next time on Beowulf and Beowulf's.
