State of Emergency Declaration

HUGH HEWITT: Morning glory, America. Bonjour. Hi, Canada. Greetings to all of you listening across the globe via HughHewitt.com. Hello to everyone watching on Univision, and greetings to everyone listening on the audio broadcast of this, found at HughforHillsdale.com. HughforHillsdale.com collects all of the Hillsdale Dialogues back to 2013. And most of them have been with Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, who joins me this morning. Good morning, Dr. Arnn.  

LARRY ARNN: Good morning, Hugh.  

HEWITT: I just voiced advertisements for your appearances in Sacramento and Fresno that are upcoming. You're making a western swing?  

ARNN: We are.  

HEWITT: We've got to be sure to tax you while you're here.  

ARNN: Yeah, that's right.  

HEWITT: You know, I've got to say something controversial at the beginning. Gavin Newsom has accomplished more in his first two weeks of governor than Jerry Brown did in eight years by stopping the high-speed train in one of the two tunnels carrying water.  

ARNN: I actually read in The New York Times a wonderful article lamenting the loss of that great dream. And I thought, wow.  

HEWITT: Wow.  

ARNN: Something's gone right.  

HEWITT: $5.5 billion. What could you do, Dr. Arnn, for American education with $5.5 billion? How many Hillsdale charter schools could you start? How big could you expand the campus? What could you do with the Kirby Center with 5.5? And you'd have the Hewitt Dorm built, too.  

ARNN: Well, I would spend half of it on all my wildest dreams, and then half of it stopping the government from doing all the stuff it's doing.  

HEWITT: It is a remarkable thing that we have to talk about so much this week—the Green New Deal. We were going to talk about impeachment. I'm going to postpone that because I want to get to the declaration of national emergency by the president. Let's begin, as I did in the first hour, by talking about Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. When exactly did Congress authorize him to do that, Larry Arnn?  

ARNN: They didn't.  

HEWITT: A trick question.  

ARNN: There you go.  

HEWITT: What does that tell us about whatever we're about to talk about?  

ARNN: Well, what we're about to talk about is what powers does the Congress have in Robert Jackson's concurring opinion in Youngstown Steel, where the Court stopped Harry Truman, who nationalized the American steel industry as a national emergency? And he lost that case. But the Congress—he said there's three kinds of things—the Congress has given the president a power, they haven't said anything about it, and they have forbidden him.  

And so, you look at those three things, right? Well, in the case of Youngstown Steel, there hadn't actually been a law forbidding the president to nationalize the steel industry, but there hadn't been one permitting it, either. In the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln was very meticulous about the Court, Constitution detractors notwithstanding. And so, he limited the Emancipation Proclamation to the states currently at war, in insurrection against the United States.  

HEWITT: And did he not postpone effectiveness for six months to give them a chance to cease their war-making?  

ARNN: That's right. And that meant that, you know, troublesome Maryland and Kentucky, for example—their slaves were not freed, because Lincoln said that his power to do this comes from the War Powers and, you know, the power of the president to be Commander in Chief and prosecute war. And so, he then limited what he did in order to conform to his constitutional principles that he signed it.  

HEWITT: He also had said about Kentucky—and a good reason not to free the slaves there and the War Power-making situation—is that he hoped to have God on his side, but he must have Kentucky.  

ARNN: That's right. That's right.  

HEWITT: It was critical to the war, so he did not blunder about. But he then went to work to get the Thirteenth Amendment passed.  

ARNN: That's right. And that was—you know, that movie, it's a good movie, although it's not as great as Lincoln—it's called Lincoln. And it's really about that. It's about him logrolling in Congress to get the Thirteenth Amendment through the Congress, which it went past handsomely in the states. And that meant that Lincoln had believed all along—the politics of Abraham Lincoln arise on this point—what can the federal government do or not do about slavery? And, you know, I'm proud to say that many of the founders of Hillsdale College were involved in contriving this argument.  

In the territories not yet organized as states, the Congress and the president have the power to forbid slavery from going there. But, in the states where it exists, they have no power over it. And so, therefore, for the federal government to forbid slavery in the states, there needed to be an amendment to the Constitution.  

HEWITT: Now, what strikes me—in fact, I want to set up the rest of our hour by reading a bit of Justice Jackson's opinion in Youngstown Sheet & Tube, the steel seizure cases in 1952. Jackson, a former solicitor general, attorney general, and our chief prosecutor at Nuremberg was a friend of FDR and a friend of the executive, but he wrote—and I posted this in 25 consecutive tweets so that the punditry out there has no excuse for to be ill-informed.  

It reads thus at the beginning: “That comprehensive and undefined presidential powers hold both practical advantages and grave dangers for the country will impress anyone who has served as a legal advisor to a President in a time of transition and public anxiety. While an interval of detached reflection may temper teachings of that experience, they are probably a more realistic influence on my views than the conventional materials of judicial decision which seem unduly to accentuate doctrine and legal fiction.  

“But as we approach the question of presidential power, we half overcome mental hazards by recognizing them. The opinions of judges, no less than executives and publicists, often suffer the infirmity of confusing the issue of a power's validity with the cause it is involved with [sic: invoked] to promote, of confounding the permanent executive office with its temporary occupant. The tendency is strong to emphasize transient results upon policies—such as wages or stabilization—and lose sight of the enduring consequences upon the balanced structure of our Republic.  

“A judge, like an executive advisor, may be surprised at the poverty of really useful and unambiguous authority applicable to the concrete problems executive powers as they actually present themselves. Just what our forefathers did envision, or would have envisioned had they foreseen modern conditions, must be divined from materials almost as enigmatic as the dreams Joseph was called upon to interpret for Pharaoh.”  

And then he goes on to line up the three, and I continue with many more thing—he is saying there a very interesting thing. You read it very closely, Joseph got Pharaoh's dreams right. So—  

—he's claiming for himself— 

ARNN: Yeah, but two guys didn't, though.  

HEWITT: —yeah, two guys didn't, and they didn't end up well. But he's claiming that it can be done. And so we really have to look at the precedents here, and what those assertions in The Federalist Papers and prior presidents have done down to the issue of whether or not a president can order the military to build barriers on the border. What do you think, Larry Arnn?  

ARNN: About whether the president can do that?  

HEWITT: Yes.  

ARNN: I think, first of all, I think very much what you think, and that is that that takes some thinking.  

HEWITT: Yep.  

ARNN: And so I will—because first of all, we are governing the country increasingly in ways that don't involve the cooperation of the branches, and the reason for that is very long and very deep. And it amounts to a constitutional breakdown, whether this particular thing does or not, because, remember, we make most of our laws in what's called the executive branch now—in the administrative agencies. And, if you can get them to do what you want them to do, and you're the president, then you just can do an awful lot now without the Congress.  

And it's interesting that Donald Trump is, you know, so far—and this is not all elucidated yet, but he talks of the war-making power. And that is surely the most—you know, national security—that is surely the most sweeping set of powers that the president has. And I looked it up because I've gotten used to the ways of Hugh Hewitt, and I—oh, by the way, I doubt your pedagogical effectiveness because, if we were to make something simple for the media, you break something down into 25 parts—  

HEWITT: Well, it's 25 tweets.  

ARNN: —it's still pretty long.  

HEWITT: If they can read 25 tweets—they get the unroll-me-thread thing to do it. Go ahead.  

ARNN: Yeah, so there are 31 declarations of national emergency in being right now. One of them is from the Carter years. And they mostly concern foreign governments, national security, seizing assets of foreigners hostile to the United States, countries hostile to the United States. But I notice that two of them—Barack Obama did quite a few of them—I notice that two of his have the phrase “blocking property of suspending interest of certain persons to the United States.” One is from Venezuela and one is from Libya. So, I will say that Barack Obama used this device to forbid people to enter the United States.  

HEWITT: Meaning?  

ARNN: Meaning that you have to judge it this way—is Trump right that it's an emergency? And we can talk about that, but, if it is, then I would guess that he could do it.  

HEWITT: And that is where I am leaning. I actually think it's a zone one, given the 1976 law, the 2006 Border Secure Fence Law, and the National Defense Authorization Act of last year. But we'll talk about it after the break, Dr. Larry Arnn. All things Hillsdale at Hillsdale.edu.  

Welcome back, America. 22 minutes after the hour. I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined by Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College. All things Hillsdale, including your ability to subscribe for free to Imprimis, the speech journal that comes monthly to your post office box or mailbox completely free of charge. You can find it at Hillsdale.edu. You can find all of our conversations, beginning with Homer and coming up to the Constitution where we are, all collected at HughforHillsdale.com. Binge-listening is advised.  

Dr. Arnn, Justice Jackson said this: “Presidential powers are not fixed but fluctuate, depending upon their disjunction or conjunction with those of Congress. We may well begin by a somewhat over-simplified grouping of practical situations, in which a President may doubt, or others may challenge, his powers, and by distinguishing roughly the legal consequences of this factor of relativity. 1. When the president acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate. In these circumstances, and in these only, may he be said (for what it may be worth) to personify the federal sovereignty.”  

“If his act is held unconstitutional under these circumstances, it usually means that the Federal Government as an undivided whole lacks power. A seizure executed by the president pursuant to an act of Congress would be supported by the strongest of presumptions and the widest latitude of judicial interpretation, and the burden of persuasion would rest heavily on any who might attack it.”  

Now, given what you know of the laws that have passed—the 1976 law that you referenced earlier, the 2006 Border Fence Act, and the new Defense Authorization Act that gives between $10 and $20 billion of unallocated, non-earmarked money to the military to build where building is needed, you think he's in zone one?  

ARNN: Yeah, I don't actually see how you can say otherwise about that. And so, his first point—Jackson's first point was if they—so the National Emergencies Act lets the president do that. And, you know, Obama declared one for the swine flu. And there was no act of Congress declaring the swine flu a national emergency. And not dead certain there was any kind of emergency on a national scale about that.  

So here's another way to look at it: Distinguish this from what I think was one of the worst things that Obama did, which was he used what he called prosecutorial discretion not to prosecute people who have come into the country illegally.  

HEWITT: Correct.  

ARNN: And that means that there's an explicit law saying a thing is illegal, and the president is to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and he said he wouldn't do it. And that means that that's directly against the law, a law passed by Congress and signed by a president.  

So this is not like that, right? This is a power that is frequently used. My own view is I wish it weren't so frequently used. It's interesting that Trump has been reluctant to do it, and hasn't done it at this moment. And he's reluctant to do it because he did get some stuff, and he tried to get some stuff from Congress.  

HEWITT: And some will interpret the fact that he did not get the stuff from Congress as pushing this into zone three, where he's in conflict with the Congress. But, in fact, it's clearly not zone three, because Congress did not tell him not to build the fence.  

ARNN: That's right. That's a question of language, right?  

HEWITT: Correct.  

ARNN: Laws are written down, and there's a reason for that. And so, if they had said in the law, “This and no more,” well, then that would—and if he signed that bill, then they've all agreed. And as Jackson points out—he was a heck of a guy, by the way—  

HEWITT: Oh, was he ever.  

ARNN: —and that lovely language—I want to mention that lovely language that you read at the beginning—he liked Harry Truman. Heck, I'm giving a talk about Harry Truman tonight. I like Harry Truman. And, as national commander, although he was kind of zany— 

HEWITT: Yes, true.  

ARNN: —and so his point is it isn't personal. And he also makes the point, it isn't just what you think about the issue.  

HEWITT: That's right. You've got to divorce it from the president who's doing it and the position of the issue on which you are involved, and think in terms of the authority of the executive and the ability of the government to govern. I'll be back with Dr. Arnn, because, while it can't be zone three and it probably is zone one, maybe it's zone two. We will figure out. Stay tuned. It's Hugh Hewitt. The Hillsdale Dialogue continues with Dr. Larry Arnn.  

Welcome back, America. It's Hugh Hewitt in the ReliefFactor.com studio. That music means, of course, we're in the last radio hour of the week. That means the Hillsdale Dialogue. There is a terrific, new free online course at Hillsdale.edu on The Second World Wars by Victor Davis Hanson and my guest, Dr. Larry Arnn, which is just—you've just got to go watch it to get an idea of the scale and scope.  

Dr. Arnn, I've been to see the documentary They Shall Not Grow Old about World War I. Have you yet done that?  

ARNN: I have not done that. I mean to do it.  

HEWITT: I sent with great trepidation the fetching Mrs. Hewitt to see it, because it is gory, but it is so astonishingly good that she came back and said everyone should see it. So I'm giving you the recommendation of someone who does not like to see as grim a scene as World War I. And I cannot imagine Churchill crawling—he did that, right? He would crawl out from the trenches into no man's land.  

ARNN: No, he would gallop.  

HEWITT: He would gallop.  

ARNN: He was—I've said it on this show before, but there are two people I know who were dashing in the trenches, and one was Douglas MacArthur, who wore a white scarf and waved a baton, and Winston Churchill, who poked around in the trenches at night, and crawled, and giggled, and hushed everybody in a very loud voice. You know, and he was often heard and fired upon.  

HEWITT: When you see this, especially some of the footage—there are 100 hours of video from the Imperial War Museum and 600 hours of audio, and Peter Jackson has transformed the film into modern film. And he has all of the uniforms of World War I. So they colored it the right way. And he has all the machinery. And they timed it right down to the second. They had to restore all the film. It's just incredible.  

Back to Justice Jackson. Zone number two of a presidential power is described by Justice Jackson this way: “When the president acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers. But there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority, or in which its distribution is uncertain.  

Therefore, congressional inertia, indifference, or acquiescing may sometimes, at least as a practical matter, enable if not invite measures on independent presidential responsibility. In this area, any actual test of power is likely to depend on the imperatives of events and contemporary imponderables, rather than on abstract theories of law.”  

OK, if it's not zone one, based on the '76 law, the 2006 law, and the NDAA last year, it's in zone two. And here, they're not saying, do not do it. They know what he's doing. This is what presidential scholars or legal scholars haven't said. He told them he was going to do it if they didn't fund it, and they didn't tell him not to do it when they passed the law. And they could have easily done that. That was right in front of them.  

ARNN: Yeah. And that's not a denial. And so, it's actually true that, yeah, the Congress has acted on this, but not in this way. That's true. But the nature of the act, right, what does the National Emergencies Act do? It says that the president may declare a national emergency when one arises, in his judgment, and then act to do something about it.  

And so, if the swine flu is a national emergency; then, if the potential entry of persons from Venezuela or Libya is a national emergency; then Trump says that—so remember, Jackson directs us to look at circumstances, right? Because the executive power is about acting in the circumstances.  

So, I would guess that the—I'm not sure that I—my provisional opinion is this is not in zone two. This is in zone one. But, if it is in zone two, I'm inclined to think, given where Jackson directs us to look, you know, there's 10 or 11 or 12 million people illegally in the country, and caravans of more coming.  

HEWITT: And deadly drugs—fentanyl. And I know we seize a lot of fentanyl at the port of entry. In fact, most of the fentanyl that we get in the country comes via the mail, and a lot of it comes via the port of entry. That does not mean that some of it is not coming in across the border. And one shipment is enough to kill one city.  

ARNN: That's right. Yeah, and you know, one reads that, in the course of taking over illegal entry in order to make drug carriers out of a lot of these people who come across, then the big drug cartels have kind of taken over that business, right? And there's a business. You pay somebody some money, and they get you across the border. And that means that, if it's true, it means it's wrapped up with the drug trade. And Lord have we not spent enormous amounts of money and trouble to try to get rid of that trade.  

HEWITT: And if you would just think like El Chapo, who was recently convicted—and there are some non-dissimilarities between Dr. Arnn and El Chapo—that if you were in control of both arms of the illegal enterprise, moving people and drugs, you would move them in concert so that the people would divert you from the drugs. It would be a strategic choice and a tactical execution that is obvious to everyone who doesn't want to close their eyes. But Beto O'Rourke was on MSNBC—we're having the MSNBC primary underway right now, where all the candidates show up with my friends over there who are lefties at night, and MSNBC Chris Hayes—Beto O'Rourke says this. Cut number two.  

CHRIS HAYES: You know, would you—if you could, would you take the wall down now here?  

BETO O'ROURKE: Yes.  

HAYES: Like, you have a wall.  

O'ROURKE: Absolutely.  

HAYES: And knock it down.  

O'ROURKE: I'd take the wall down.  

HAYES: And do you think the city—do you think, if there's a referendum here in this city, that would pass?  

O'ROURKE: I do.  

HEWITT: So, we are dealing with what Peggy Noonan writes this morning, a Democratic Party which has gone hard left, Larry Arnn, on the border. Hard left. And that sends a signal to everyone out there who's thinking about making the journey that they ought to come on over, because part of the United States political establishment doesn't care. And that itself makes the problem much worse.  

ARNN: Yeah. And, you know, it doesn't fit into the pattern of Justice Jackson's concurrence to analyze this this way, but I'll add the point, because you bring up a wide point—the drug trade and all of that, that's very serious stuff. And I agree that that gives powers to the government to do something about it, because the voters of the common country are a matter of the federal government.  

But look at this: 10 million people, or 12 million people, or millions more are coming. That affects what we mean by the people of the United States. And since it's true that the heart of our system is that the governed must consent, then it's a very old thing. It's actually a perfectly original thing that the American people have been concerned about changes in who the people are made by the government without their consent.  

And that's in the Declaration of Independence. The king gave a new constitution to Quebec. He just gave it to them by fiat. And then he expanded the borders of Quebec. And that changed who are the people of the United States. Well, they weren't the United States then, but of the colonies.  

And so that's one of the titles of the 17 paragraphs of complaints against the king in the Declaration of Independence. And so, you know, this is the reason I particularly object to Obama's not—prosecutional discretion to let all of these illegals, to regularize all these illegals in some way. And remember, continue to have a porous border. Is it now by executive action—the president is deciding the makeup of the people of the United States, and if you have no defined people, you cannot have consent of the governed.  

HEWITT: And I have to recall my memory now. I taught yesterday Arizona v. the United States, which was the 2011, I believe, decision in which the Supreme Court struck down most of the state of Arizona's laws concerning people in the country without permission. And Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, saying that the immigration power is the power of the future of the country, and it's vested in the federal government. And, therefore, states may not interfere with it. He's right, by the way. And some Arizonans were unhappy about that, but he's right for the reason you just specified.  

And so, the power of the president and the Congress together over immigration is complete. It's 100%. And the question is whether or not—there's nothing for the state, there's nothing for a foreign government. It's 100% our power. And that which we have already adduced, the '76 law, the 2006 law, and the NDAA of last year, are the only things extent on it.  

So we know—and I want to do this for the purpose of completeness—zone number three, Justice Jackson says, “When the President takes measures incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any of the constitutional powers of Congress over the matters. Courts can sustain exclusive presidential control in such a case only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject. Presidential claim to power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution, for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system.” It is at least clear, I think, Dr. Arnn, that that's not where we are.  

ARNN: No. No, and remember, Congress can give an authoritative order to the president only if some president has signed it. So you wouldn't just be going against the will of Congress, right, because who gives a hoot about that, by the way? They pass resolutions all the time. To get to be a law, then the Congress and the president have to cooperate. And they have not done so in any way to negate using the national emergency power to build a border wall.  

HEWITT: And so we end up at this position where—we haven't seen it yet, we'll see what authorities they rely upon—but those who are declaring—and I want to talk about this in the last segment, that this is the end of all time. The conservatives are alarmed, and they're fretting and they're throwing up their arms and they're saying that Elizabeth Warren will declare climate change a national emergency or gun violence a national emergency and confiscate weapons. They are neglecting that every exercise of presidential power is scrutinized on its merits against previous congressional actions and the limits placed upon both the Congress and the president by our Bill of Rights and our natural rights.  

ARNN: And see, I will say she may well do that. And the discussion about that—well, first of all, heaven forbid that she does that, but she may do that.  

HEWITT: She may do that.  

ARNN: And I myself, you know, am not partial to this way of governing. And that's just because the government's supposed to proceed by law. And this is a law, and it is true that, in any reasonable system, the president would have power to declare an emergency and act according to it. And that's because it's the nature of the legislative power that it should not be—it does too much—it's not supposed to be legislating only about the present. It's supposed to be making rules that it will apply in all circumstances going forward.  

And the Congress can't act in response to events in the way that executive branch can do. It's the nature of the executive branch to do that. The timelines are much shorter. So there has to be room for the president to—see—  

HEWITT: Hold the thought.  

ARNN: We should all follow the sophistication of Justice Jackson, right? Because the thing is, there must be such a power.  

HEWITT: There must be. We'll come back after the break, and we will discuss exactly that there must be such a power somewhere in there.  

Welcome back, America. It's Hugh Hewitt with Dr. Larry Arnn. The Hillsdale Dialogue is underway. All things Hillsdale at Hillsdale.edu, including this conversation, which can also be accessed at HughforHillsdale.com. A list of all the events that Dr. Arnn will be speaking at in Sacramento and Fresno. You can go get free tickets, but you've got to go to HillsdaleforFresno.com or HillsdaleforSacramento.com. They fill up. They are completely sold out. So if you want to go for free, enjoy a wonderful reception, hear Dr. Arnn talk about education and the future of American civilization, do that now.  

Dr. Arnn, Mark Murray's a friend of mine over at NBC, and he is part of the chorus that is saying, quote, make no mistake, “The emergency that Trump faces at the border isn't a real national emergency—it's a perceived political one.” And he cites as evidence of this violent crime in El Paso falling since the mid 1990s, apprehensions in El Paso falling over the years '01 to '19. Those are interesting data points. They don't go to the question of the severity of the threat posed by an individual.  

ARNN: That's right. And you know, that judgment, right, because—let's go back to where we were. There must be a power like this. It's written in the nature of the thing. And, indeed, the whole distinction between the executive and legislative branches implies things like that. But, if the power becomes so broad that the executive branch is just acting of its own without the Congress, then that's really terrible.  

And I will say there is a danger of that, but that doesn't really come from Donald Trump. That comes from the fact that most of the legislative power has moved into what we call the executive branch, but it's really these 150 or so agencies. They're legislative, executive, and judicial branches all rolled into one. And so, take that factor away, which was just beginning to grow when Justice Jackson's opinion was made in 1952— 

HEWITT: '52, yeah.  

ARNN: —take that away, the way you balance that—because it is a balance thing—is this emergency power too great? And finally, the people have to balance that, right?  

HEWITT: Yep. And they do, every four years. Or every two years.  

ARNN: We have elections, right? And that's how you fix that, or one of the ways. And see, the conflict between the branches is a signal to the people to get involved.  

HEWITT: One of the ways you don't fix it is to have a handful of FBI people decide to take out the president. This is Andrew McCabe on 60 Minutes, which will be seen in full on Monday night, the clip they have released. Cut number 11:  

ANDREW MCCABE: I was speaking to the man who had just run for the presidency and won the election for the presidency, and who might have done so with the aid of the government of Russia, our most formidable adversary on the world stage. And that was something that troubled me greatly.  

SCOTT PELLEY: How long was it after that that you decided to start the obstruction of justice and counterintelligence investigations involving the president?  

MCCABE: I think the next day I met with the team investigating the Russia cases, and I asked the team to go back and conduct an assessment to determine where are we with these efforts and what steps do we need to take going forward. I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground in an indelible fashion that, were I removed quickly or reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace. I wanted to make sure that our case was on solid ground, and if somebody came in behind me and closed it and tried to walk away from it, they would not be able to do that without creating a record of why they'd made that decision.  

PELLEY: You wanted a documentary record— 

MCCABE: That's right.  

PELLEY: —that those investigations had begun, because you feared that they would be made to go away.  

MCCABE: That's exactly right.  

HEWITT: Larry Arnn, that is the deputy director of the FBI, not the director, who has never been elected to anything, asserting the power to take control and force an investigation upon a just elected president.  

ARNN: That's right. And just remember, it can only be obstruction of justice to fire an executive official if that official is not under the control of the president. And those officials are not elected, and the president is. And so, it is the clearest thing in the world that any president, Donald Trump included, can fire any FBI director—James Comey included, maybe included especially—just because he doesn't like the way he parts his hair. Right?  

HEWITT: Yep.  

ARNN: And he could say that, and that's why—because we, rightly or wrongly, put Donald Trump in that place. And, you know, many of the wrangles between the executive and the legislative branches—back in Lincoln's day, for example, and in Andrew Johnson's day—was does the president have the power to dismiss appointed executive officials? Because, if he doesn't, then they're working for somebody else. In those days, they would have been working for a radical Congress, but, in these days, they would be working for themselves.  

HEWITT: That's exactly right. Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, thank you, my friend. We send you away on your weekend, America, with “Joyful, Joyful.” Enjoy it. Enjoy the liberty we all enjoy. Get smart at Hillsdale.edu. You can listen to this again at HughforHillsdale.com if you want to get more into detail on Justice Jackson. And we will be back next week with the next installment of the Hillsdale Dialogue. And we may have the actual declaration of emergency in front of us then.