Little bit of time to prepare for this interview, i want to start because you wrote a piece in 2017 the unloaded pretty strong on President Trump for various overreach in the exercise of executive power and now youre presenting him as a defender of the Constitutional Order regarding president ial powers, i want to ask you what changed your vehicle, how did you move from where you were before to what you have presented in your new book . Thank you for inviting me too come along with you and we are looking forward to this conversation and as you know ive been a meyer on your work with executive privilege, that should be a lot of fun, i started out weary and President Trump, was not a supporter in the 2016 election and the thing that worried me is he was a populist and constitution seems designed to stop populace. It is fairly antidemocratic in nature in a lot of ways like the senate and judicial review in the Electoral College, the presence of the states as important parts of the constitution, i was worried when trump came in as a populist who wants to achieve an agenda that he feels or received a mandate that he would strain against or go beyond the constitutional restraints of this power and i was worried that he was doing that in the travel ban, threats to build a border wall, i urge them to use the president ial powers primarily of Foreign Affairs at their height and instead to understand in Domestic Affairs that his role is to enforce the law and work with congress to get legislation passed, what happened since 2017 to today, i found his critics have become the ones who have gone too far in trying to stretch the constitution because i think trump is so outrageous and they launched attack after attack on his legitimacy, its trumps critics per capital who have talked about getting rid of the Electoral College and talked about packing the Supreme Court to add six new members to get it to 15, who want to return with her world was statutory real independent councils which criminalize our policies. One of the nationalized large parts of our economy, i think it has left trump undeniably using the constitution as a shield weather than using constitution to pursue his own self interest but that leaves the field of relying on more traditional interpretation of the constitution so i argue either intentionally or unintentionally he has become more the defender of the traditional constitution that his critics. As a member of topics you cover from executive order in the border wall, the impeachment process, im going to try to go through some of these and get your take on the president s exercise of executive authority in these areas, starting with the impeachment i get the point that you make that the president did not yield and did not apologize and the legitimacy of the process, but you also dont hold the president blameless for how he handled the controversial phone call for the ukraine matter altogether, my question is, is it a win for the institution of the presidency given an affirmation of trumps the pensio constitutionalism whs defending his position which he himself created and never should happen in the first place. I think in a sense in my mind how the constitution intends to deal with executive misconduct or abuse of power and maybe he had an unconventional level approach or even a some people claim as a mixture of the Public Interest with his own private interest, the deeper constitutional question, how does the constitution try to constrain executives, i thought it really doesnt in two ways, the election process is for most in terms of the framers view into you think is abusing their powers and you elect congressional majorities to propose him and you get him out of office, i thought the mistake that occurred here was impeachment was being used for activity which fell short of the constitutional standard, i am not one, i dont think impeachment requires a crime, i think i cried a misdemeanor does include abuse of executive power but it has to be a serious one and it seems to me the kinds of accusations that were being levied against President Trump were designed for the electoral process, it was not a serious level of treason or bribery in the kind they came to france for paying off the king of england during the 17th century, thats what the framers had in mind, i think he can see that in the founders requirement that the senate gets to two thirds before actually would remove a president even though it put impeachment in the hands of a simple majority of making it difficult to remove a president through impeachment and that would funnel the kinds that we saw that would be funneled into the electoral process. Let me go back deeper into the circumstances that led to that, the president likes to talk about the deep state of officials who he believes some defense of the book in the legitimacy of the 2016 election and in the president s view, they have acted to undermined a duly elected president , i ask that you address a couple located issue of the principal loyalty of people who swore an oath to the constitution and onto the branch of government or the president and who believe they have an obligation to honor that oath by bringing to attention of authority whether its internal oversight or committees in congress, potentially illegal or unethical behavior. I think this issue arises twice, not just impeachment but the russian collusion and it raises a deeper philosophical about government, im not claiming trump is thinking deeply about political theory but i think by his pursuit of his rational political self interest is advancing the greater constitutional good which is more tied to the 18th century, let me describe what he was fighting against and away which is whether the fbi, jim comey in the headquarter or whether its numbers of the Foreign Service and the Permanent National security council, i dont think of it as a deep state, i think the phrase comes from turkey, i think that more as a progressive era bureaucracy, the idea of which was most important Public Policy decisions are really technical or scientific or professional, so you want to delegate power over those decisions to those experts and insulate them from politics, not increase political control but reduce, this is woodward wilsons fault and had a great impact on our constitution, i think you see that in the fbi, National Security bureaucracy in the Foreign Service, trump embodies more in 18th century view of what the executive branch is about, we the voters elected twhirl college, hes only one charge with executive power in enforcing the laws and everyone in the executive branch is conducting Foreign Policy who is enforcing the laws are doing as an assistant to the president so its a much more Political Division of the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy is responsible to the president and we hold him accountable through politics, thats what happened in the impeachment and the russia collision investigation and you have the permanent experts, the Foreign Service where the fbi conclude that the president essentially was unfit for offi office, they would not of computed to the founders, they would challenge the head of their own branch as unfit, it is not their job, you say there is an impeachment system in congress does has the right and the power to remove president s to abuse that power and they are going gather the information from the executive branch to people who work there, that is because they dont think impeachment was off and i dont see how impeachment would run other than people say the president misused his powers and witnesses from the executive branch. It was a standard that the house and members of the senate were using as a high crimes and misdemeanors, instead i wouldve thought all those things and impeachment were much more appropriate for oversight hearings to be brought out for spending cuts, the usual tools that congress uses to fight with executive branch and putting it before the voters as we will this november, this will be before us when we go this november, thats the better solution. We talk a lot about executive power and prerogative and trump defended the institutional presidency, i wanted to go through some of the different powers of the presidency, starting with the executive orders, thats an easy one to talk about, the president has the authority to reverse actions by executive order or at least earlier, under that is signing executive orders with real president ial leadership and we have a President Joe Biden next year, i would imagine he would adverse a road under really large number of executive order, is their legacy for president to engage in the traditional process of negotiation, building consensus, getting compromising congress in and getting the walls to the system that will have a greater permanency rather than willynilly large numbers of executive orders and saying i did a lot of things. I think thats a great point, the book doesnt approach it the exact way you did, just the way i think of it is that the president has his power of reversal, i thought that was something new and a lot of things a president can do unilaterally and they have to do it reverse what the last guy did, you are right, if the president only offers executive order, he is laying and vulnerable to a simple reversal when President Biden comes in generally 21st, only by working with congress to affect statutory change you give it a longlasting legacy impermanen impermanence, i agree with you, President Trump, like president obama have been frustrated congress not being able to get a lot of their agenda through, naturally theyre going to turn to executive orders but i dont think its so long as the constitution says, so long as president s have that power to quickly and neatly reverse any use of unilateral executive power by their predecessors, i think that was by the Supreme Court decision on the daca case which really surprised me in the book and i thought it would turn out the other way and then i wonder all the implications that would occur that it did not allow President Trump to reverse the daca program. On that let me take a contemporary application of this particular issue, can the president issue an executive order to prohibit evictions as recently that they might like to do with congress that approves the temporary moratorium, without being appropriate use of an executive order or should the president as well, only after the tiktok, can the president issue an executive order banning tiktok . Im sure lots of parents want the president to have that power. [laughter] but it is really interesting, this power that president obama creates an daca for the first time is like creating a program by not only enforcing the law, which leads daca programs, for example the rent eviction, i have not studied that closely but simply to meet eviction law is a state law issue and i dont see how the federal government by restraining itself prosecutorial discretion and have an effect on the state and whether theyre going to evict people, if theres going to be any kind of eviction waivers at the federal level at the state court can the federal government and its a whole thats expanding the power by attaching and spending for our conditional spending when the states except the pandemic relief money, it is not the same thing, also i would say with tiktok, that the traditional use of the executive order as you are mentioning earlier and effective power in the more common executive order is the execution of some delegated power from congress and now you know congress has given a huge amount of power to the executive branch to regulate International Economics for security reasons, already i believe there have been a National Emergency declared for sanctions purposes wer with regd to China Businesses and a lot of its companies and practices are under investigation by the fbi, im sorry if President Trump bands tiktok, that seems constitutionally straightforward, is just an exercise of the 1977 law that gives congress the president the sanction national companies, transactions for national securities, if President Trump were trying to do unilaterally without any congressional, that would be a difficult question, i dont think without congress the president has an International Sanctioning power. Let me turn to another contemporary issue, to be fair the author, youre not writing during the pandemic like with all books is published in late july, i was looking at your citation in the last source was february of this year. Guilty as charged. I think its a good topic to bring up with the exercise of executive power, this is absolutely the biggest challenge of president ial leadership over time and none of us expected this challenge, all point out at one point you said challenges at home dont have the unforeseen and unprecedented, a virtually thats what happened in this particular case it came from abroad. Right it became a domestic crisis, the president has an obligation to establish his leadership in the country that has been really hungry for that and in the book, which again before the pandemic, you did not have a chance to to approach the president leadership and i want to ask you to apply it in a sense because President Trump is a strong and vigorous leader, but where is that leader during the outbreak when he said effectively to the state youre on your own, the federal government is not a shipping clerk, when the governors were pleading for some help getting protective equipment and also in a new edition of this book, i dont think in ignore the pandemic as a new chapter in the president ial powers, what are you going to say in the next edition when you discuss the pandemic in this president s leadership. Im glad you raised that, that the chapter i wish i couldve written after the deadline, i thought it would wrap up nicely with the end. During this presidency things keep happening which consume a whole presidency over and over again, it is interesting, people criticize trumper being a dictator, too much executive power, in february and then within a month people are saying why arent you doing more, this i think is not really the separation of power, its federalism, the constitution no matter what the president s powers are with filling in with the federal government can or cant do they still have limits, i think this is where this wouldve gone along with my thesis that trump has been respecting the federalism limit on his power even to his own political detriment, the populace and him im sure wants to set closing dates and reopening dates for every business in the country and wouldve wanted to set standards for social distancing, but the constitution does not give the federal government that power, the constitution is one of limited federal powers and we all along have had the understanding that Public Health and safety is primarily a state and local issue and that the federal government can come in as a support but the frontline trench warfare starting the pandemic or disorder is going to always be city and state, local authorities and i think the federal government has been doing what its supposed to do, it can provide money to the states, it can provide equipment and personnel and resources, it can fund a vaccine, technical research, spread information but the federal government does not have the people or the actual mechanisms of government to take care of and nationwide pandemic, if you think about how many people that the federal government even has, how can the forces pandemic, social distancing system, i like to point the hall the higher fbis, the higher workforce is smaller than the new york police department, there is a real agency of government, arm of public power and the widespread pandemic has to come from the state government, it is interesting because i think a president with the constitutional limits on power when even try to go beyond that, i think with the political detriment stayed within those boundaries. Is if a fair question to ask, can you imagine fdr saying in a situation like this, this is for the state and were not a shipping clerk, thats what bothers so many people that they expect the president to be big and powerful and authoritative and how difficult is it to say wear a mask. As i argue, this is why the founders created the presidency and why even have an independent executive branch and the parliamentary system where the chief executive is a leader of the Majority Party and the party would be nancy pelosi or paul ryan if you mea years ago, they wanted the branch of the government to act quickly and swiftly in a time of emergency and unforeseen circumstances and crises so we expect president s to do that and we think its easier to do that when you have an enemy who is attacking or natural disaster, someplace where the president can use their own constitutional powers or invoke legislation that provides the emergency power, it seems to me Something Like a pandemic is just outside the grasp of the national government, its too large a problem, to its a great social problem and affects everybody, and you could say please wear a mask, please stay socially distant, the federal government could create the law and enforce it to make you where mask, to say 6 feet away from each other. I hope its not offtopic but some scholars are making the case that this is an indictment of the federal system itself that were not terribly well suited for handling this crisis and you look at nonetheless some of the under federal systems, germany and australia, for example canada were they done a lot better, is there something inherent to the system that led us to the situation that we are in now with this pandemic and the president really was constrained and the tools that he had available to solve the problem and some of the democracies. President biden or president hillary clinton, i dont know the outcome wouldve been that different just because there is a restraint on the president and the federal government, you raise a really interesting point of comparing it to the performance of other federal systems, i think her system is a little different and we have so many state governments, germany, australia, they dont have 50 different state governments but its also true about this and that, trump is appointed justices and judges to the federal bench and are they believers in federalism too, he has in other areas been pushing the federalism revolution thats been going on since reagan, youre right, i think the federal system as you point out is slow, why do you have to go for 50 states to do it, i think the state system is more wris rk adverse, the idea that we will get the right answer right away and making an affirmative mistake and for experimentation, it allows for adaptation to local circumstances, it allows for competition between governments, these are all features of a deeper constitutional federal system like ours which is deeply suspicious of human nature and does not easily assume that you are me will get the right answer right away, if you cannot why would you give any government the power to oppose it immediately on the country, you can say that meaner system is slow, chaotic and maybe more prone to make mistakes by failing to act, although we are going to make a lot of mistakes by omission and making the wrong choice. One of the issues that came up earlier and continues as the sanctuary cities in the president s threat to withdraw federal funds from those localities, do you care to comment on that as a reflection of trumps view of federalism and how it drives with his respect for the institutions at the state and local level to have their own autonomy and dealing with issues. It is interesting, its important to separate the political rhetoric from the constitutional actions, he has not tried to compel state and local officers to do the federal Government Spending the Supreme Court has issued a series of decisions that we call anticommentary decisions the state and local officers dont have to or cannot even enforce federal law because theyre not within the executive branch so the president cannot tell them how to enforce federal law and they moved governors so the court has said this is one of the reason why state officers are their own government, they dont enforce federal law and they dont have to cooperate, the court has suggested that if this comes out of obamacare if anything that the federal government can try to use ivory to get state and local officers to cooperate with federal immigration or Drug Enforcement or whatever subject, to me even though trump attacked mears and governors, when it comes to time to actually moving state policy and the federal direction, he seems to rely on the traditional tools, if you dont cooperate with me, we will not give you so much money as we did before, the court said it is okay and the obamacare case as long as its not a huge amount of money, were not sure what that level is but the amount of the Trump Administration has been using has not been that high, trump is not really tried to order governors or mayors with this program, for the most part even the state of california, the city and state and from opposition of trump policies nothing has really happened to them, the meeting to subject the border wall, the controversial use here i want to address the president of the department where he did not get the full appropriation from congress that he had requested, what is the basis for the President Authority circumvent, why do you think the Supreme Court decided to leave this alone . I think critics in the border wall has attracted liberal conservative critics on both sides of the aisle, senators from both sides of the aisle voted to override the decision, but this was not really to me and executive power, to me what happened is that Congress Gave the president quite a bit of power and trump is using it as past president s have, what trump did was declare a National Emergency which is recognized the National Emergencies act and once there is a National Emergency, theres another law this is the president can transfer money between building accounts essentially, the constitutional question is really a statutory question, can the president declare a National Emergency with border immigration, is that the National Emergency that congress had in mind, we have had National Emergency in a specific event or a specific entity rather than a problem. Immigration is more like a problem i admit that a country or an event, on the other hand, past president s have done the same, sometimes i feel like people make arguments against trump that they did not make with past president s. For example president reagan declared a National Emergency when the laws expire, he said its a National Emergency if i cannot control exports of Sensitive Technology abroad, president obama declared a National Emergency over the swine flu, president s have already in the past use the National Emergency. People say does that mean President Biden could declare a National Emergency over Climate Change itself . It seems to me when you look at how president s have used this power and how congress has repeatedly not tried to define a National Emergency you would think its impossible to define what an emergency is beforehand, theres going to be a lot more flexibility for the next president and you said immigration at the border, what i say Climate Change. Right, is that the danger, in other words president s create a presumption of legality, as you said past president s have done similar things, what is really the standing in her constitutional wall of precedents that dont really have the standing in any language of the constitution itself or in the evolution of constitutional being the judicial decisions . I dont know what to think about this, we probably think about it differently, the founders when they put the phrase executive power in the constitution, this is really being guided more by Alexander Hamiltons writing, they had in mind the energy, unity, speed, they wanted to face emergencies and crises but they also left it somewhat undefined because this is something that they struggled over and hamilton talked about this, how do you design the government to handle everything thats going to come out it that you dont know about, if you know in advance you could write a detailed statute to prepare, so the president is supposed to be there to declare emotional emergency, maybe its unwise to circumscribed by written laws because you dont know what the problem is going to be, how do you check that, do you then invite and slowly expand their power over time, i would say first of all congress does not need to keep refilling these accounts, keep recognizing and accepting these emergency declarations but of course they dont have to essentially say were not going to review whether this is a National Emergency in the statute. But what they expected is that is there going to be a limit thats going to be congress, here the founders were pretty clear, they say we expect ambition to counteract ambition and to use their constitutional powers to fight against each other, they will slowly over time seek to expand the power because they are going to be more circumstances and a growing country and people demanding more from as you said that they handle the pandemic, why is he doing more about the pandemic, naturally hell want to spend his powers, that is something thats been going on for about 100 years, hydraulic political pressure on the president , i think the main check on this executive power was going to have to come from congress fighting back against it and i think congress has ample power to pull the rug out from under president who goes to for, the border wall, congress doesnt have to put any money into the building accounts and trump is using to transfer money for the border wall if it really wants this, sometimes i think this is a Political Science explanation, it seems like members of congress dont want to take spans on these difficult questions, they would rather blame the president for mishandling the pandemic were going too far with disorder in the streets were misusing Emergency Powers rather than Congress Stepping in and say we will stop it and to support the situation, that is poorly on them as things go wrong and they have to run for reelection. Are you comfortable with the president moving from that with department of defense with the border wall and the president makes the argument i ran for election, i won, i have a mandate, all president s say that of course in congress did not give me the appropriation that i asked for, im going to find other sources to fulfill my promise. It goes to your point that you start out with a permanent versus the nature of executive power in trump can do that for one year in both the National Emergencies act in the statue which allows transfer, after that one year, he does not get anywhere if he gets cooperation from congress and longterm longlasting funding, if Congress Wants to stop them, its an interesting power, they have the power to stop the president by doing nothing and they continue to do so, i think congress has a lot of tools they choose not to use them because they think they dont want to be politically accountable, but the president go out and spend the money and take the heat if its a bad idea. Let me turn to the au and which are addressed the authorization for use of military force enacted by congress as you know in the wake of 9 11 and you say this president ial authority extended a president obama and trump, nearly two decades after the initial authorization with the original terrorist organization effectively eliminated, when did the military authorizations and, do we consider the war on terrorism now the seemingly limit of 40, is there an in game here where this is not needed anymore, it can be withdrawn. I think this is more question of whether congress is living up to its own duties than the president , i was involved on drafts and it was a question that came up in half of the Justice Department and the broader level that the 9 11 attacks were so unprecedented, we dont other countries but we did not know what that time and with the enemy, what kinds of tax they would be in the future and so we did not drafted, congress did not pass the draft that had that kind of limit to it, but it could have passed the statute with a sunset date, i think we think about it, they talked about it and they chose not to, if you go back and look at past declaration of war or authorization with the military force, they dont have that either, i think in particular this is something they came up with vietnam into did not have a sunset date, Congress Passed a law cutting off all funding for vietnam by the time a 9 11 its safe to say congress understands the issue now about whether to put sunset in and they chose not to, again i dont think it is president s expanding their constitutional power to far when congress in Congress Continues to provide the money for those military operations, i think from a political accountability standard, congress always has the ability to cut off executive initiatives to rob them of the legacy and permanence you are asking about simply by not refilling every year for the things they oppose and at the one hand your members of congress complaining that it does not affected at the same time theyre happy to keep funding and very expensive military operation in places like iraq and syria, potentially ironic, afghanistan, so who is really at constitutional fault. Do you think congress should in the au on that . If they want to, i dont think its necessary, to hear the other interesting thing, this is part of the chapter on trump and foreignpolicy iphone the most difficult to write, what is the trump doctrine, its gotta be more than pingpong get around, even if they are pingpong and around, there still like laws of gravity that explained her acting the way they do in the hard thing was to step back on trumps every day prices and fighting in fear of what is a large motivation, this is what is different interesting about the relationship into the president the executive and legislature in the Foreign Affairs and were, we have a president who is trying to reduce the problem and withdrawing from places, terminating and agreements in congress is actually the one that wants to stay in these places and they dont want to reduce troops in germany, they did not want to pull out of afghanistan or syria, they want to stay in all these agreements, to me that actually showed that the president does have those powers and foreignpolicy, at least i always thought he did because Congress Really was the primary branch and foreignpolicy, they really were the only branch that could turn on key on for war, then how can the president do all these things on the flipside and the negative, how can the president withdraw troops when he feels like congress, because that shows that the president did have that discretion all along and it really was people upset about the president using this to get into obligations but not to get us out of a. Let me turn to another topic, theres a lot of areas where you see the president has ultimate authority to act as he did and even though critics complained of course, i would like to get at the constitutional race to do something as opposed to shooting of done it, trump for example can take the country out of international agreements, it was not wise to do so, arguable people on different sites will have different cases, some of the pardons that he issued, he just brought about a huge amount of criticism of whether they were appropriate although it seems a constitutional power that the president possesses is absolutely in this area, im asking the question just because he can do it, but because he does so in the face of the challenges in the party establishment, from the Foreign Policy establishment, opposition leaders in congress, is not what makes him a great defender of constitutionalism and the founders of our republic . Not at all, i think you as a political scientist are far better judge of that should he rather than can he question, i do think that where trump is successful as a president in your sense, should he enacted these policies is a very different question than whether President Trump was defending the proper prerogatives of the president , it might be an ironic thing but it may be that all the fights he had were to the benefit of his successor and say its joe biden, the person who is going to enjoy the fruits of all these bottles that trump is been fighting is going to be the next president , the restoration of controlling Law Enforcement and foreignpolicy and so one, its been taking place for the four years in the next president will be able to use those to achieve policy, i have to say i made the argument in this book and maybe in another book i read about ten years ago, what youre talking about is how we judge whether president is great, not whether the user constitutional power to the full, its a harder question that is tied up in the executive power, did we use those powers in the right circumstances, did the preside president , i think of this as the difference of buchanan in lincoln, i hope their listeners realize were talking about James Buchanan not pat buchanan. You never know. James buchanan and Abraham Lincoln are the same exact unforeseen emergency crisis which is the slavery and buchanan just chooses not to use his president ial power, he actually says this is a problem for congress to solve any ask congress to study it and congress appoint a special commission, im sure its still meaty because they did not have any answer, linking comes in and says i have these Emergency Powers and i will take the executive power clause in im going to energetically meet the problem in the challenges of the session and there he used lincoln and he understood the circumstances demanded with the matching enter matching response with a broad executive power, fewer president who uses those powers at the wrong time, would be to wait like buchanan, the great emergency you did nothing, maybe thats what people say about trump and the pandemic, or maybe worse, there is no great challenge and you still invoke the great powers of the office that are designed for emergencies that can lead to catastrophe, thats what happened when nixon, we were in a. Of regular politics and he thought everything was a National Security emergency and he thought he could surveilled using counterintelligence powers to democratic parties, it is the application of the constitutional power to circumstance which will turn into determine a president is successful. Let me stick on an important issue, the president has issued controversial pardons, no doubt about that, what is troubling to some traditionalists, he worked outside the traditional screening process of the office of the parting attorney and the department of justice, i would argue clearly is constitutional for him to do that, the article to power of the president parted is absolute and nothing that he says he has to go through the traditional screening process, i think that process there exist for the purpose of trying to protect the president from issuing pardons, is the president wise to go wood alone as circumstances like this and not go through the traditional framework and the department of justice before considering pardons. I thought the party of roger stone was ill advised, there was no advice, i think if you were to parted manafort in the special counsel, that would be unfortunate misuse of the pardon power, agitates absolute, when i see the Pardon Office, at least to my begin the conflict or tension which does give me so responsibility and powers to the president alone in an effort inspired by the Progressive Movement in the government last century to professionalize everything, the Pardon Office expresses an idea that there is a technical way to decide between good pardons and bad pardons, to the founders they wouldve seen this is an inherently political decision and we will judge whether its right or wrong, the voters vote on trump rather than saying theres a professionally right answer and like you saw as a lawyer i dont think roger stone to violate the law and an obstruction of congress, but i dont think its correct or incorrect answer, i think its a political decision that the president has to hold them accountable for in an election. I think its a bad decision. Let me talk about institutional prerogative if it wasnt institutional branch, you talk about the executive power in the president s authority in the president s right to parting as weve been talking about that you acknowledge the president have the absolute right and i agree with you there, but what about the houses impeachment power which is subject to a very High Standard, famously gerald florida said the standard for impeachment is whatever the majority the house as it is, by consensus the house of representatives. I think he wanted to impeach the Supreme Court justice, douglas maybe. Not a good idea. I was not talking about nixon. [laughter] no. In congress he actually advocated the impeachment of sitting Supreme Court justice, did not go anywhere. One thing i argued in my book, we have been, maybe even accelerating with this idea that the Supreme Court should interpret the constitution and has a source of the supremacy and its getting more and more favor in the court itself is done more and more things to try to reinforce that and i do think there is some truth, not to the standard but at least to the idea that the other branches get to interpret the constitution and when it comes to the definition of a high crime and misdemeanor, the house does interpret, but so does the senate when they choose to quit, i dont think florida was right that it means whatever the house thinks or whatever the senate thinks, that is just locating which institution, even the house and senate has to apply their good faith and effort to say what do we think high crimes and misdemeanor actually means rather than saying we can just use it to impeach president s from the other political party, that would be a good test of why florida is wrong, democrats in congress to say we interpret high crimes and misdemeanors so flexibly we can remove any president which happens to come from the other party and we will use a democratic president. Thats not really your job under the constitution in your founders into create an independent president in the impeachment power should not be transformed into a parliamentary system where the congress is using as a tool to control the president because they did have a power to remove and the power to control, thats why they set a High Standard with high crimes and misdemeanors with a conviction requirement i know you been talking to the president. Youre actually the expert on executive privilege, you tell me what im allowed to talk about. The president with advice in the white house and with outside the white house in young the right not to answer peoples questions. I will stand by you on that one, anyway, are there areas where the president has acted unilaterally where you would advise, just in general not anything you talked about in person to step back and try to build a consensus through Public Opinion and congress to get things done. The very issue that i think of the white house in tension, immigration and back, i thought before the Supreme Court issued its opinion the last month and a half that president s have a responsibility of the constitution to take care of the laws are faithfully executed and i think that means president s have to enforce all the laws and enforce the law equally because president s have the discretion that weve long recognized of resources for bringing cases that are Greater Public benefit, we dont necessarily want to have federal officers chasing down every Single Person who has any little bit of marijuana in their pocket, on the other hand i dont think that means president s could say im going to set enforcement that this law is 0, i think thats what president obama did, in 2012 i criticized the decision and the expansion, i sympathize, i believe President Trump has said publicly i would like a deal to work out a solution for children who are brought here in violation to immigration laws but to no fault of their own or parents who have American Children but the parents themselves are not here legally and the power to congress and i would say until the Supreme Court opinion came out a month and half ago President Trump was correct to say i dont have any daca program, i have to enforce the immigration laws even if i dont like it because thats the policy choice of the constitution grants to congress. And instead the better solution for immigration, i would say immigration levels lifted maybe by two times or three times the current levels, i think theyre the only way you get to settle is a settle permanent solution, something thats not going to be unstable because president s can, going change back and forth, to set out a new visa category and set out in numbers on the daca programs that have it passed by congress, that is better for the beneficiaries because if you are never really sure whether your status is legal because congress could always take it away. We have about four minutes left. Oh my god, weve had a lot of fun. Weve had a little bit of an out there question but i think its a good closing one and if its a short answer we will think of another question for you, what president in history does trump most resemble in the exercise of executive powers . After your answer i want to hear your answer. Think about this a lot, he reminds me of Andrew Jackson and i will explain why, the things that surprised me, youre a clever interview because it goes back to the original scene which i oppose trump in the first place because he was a populist, jackson was the first populace, his campaign is very similar to trump were John Quincy Adams harvard educated, conducted diplomacy with his parents would use 13 years old, speak somebody languages, you could create a better could character tour of quincy adam and he represents more of the roughandtumble new frontier population in america that overthrows the new england delete or the virginia planter thats run a country and jackson that jackson would come in and try to overthrow everything because hes a populist but in the end he relies, the people who dont like and want to impeach him too, they did not have the votes as they come up with and they censure him for his efforts to defeat the bank, it is interesting when jackson invokes the constitution hes doing it in a defensive way or he issues a long what seems at the time and outrageous defense of his actions saying my executive power, my power over Law Enforcement is a defense to what i did to fire cabinet secretary like the treasury secretary, he moved money out of the bank in the United States at the state banks and he said i have a statutory and constitution power to do it and he used the constitution as a defensive shield, that reminds me a lot about trump, i dont know if trump go down historically like Andrew Jackson but is equally a disruptor in the political order, at the same time hes relying on a spartan president ial power of removal and Law Enforcement, even before trump came up with his signature line, Andrew Jackson signature line should have been you are fired. , who do you think he most resembles. I think trump is really an evolution in the american presidency in the mark under modern era with vast expansion of the exercise of unilateral powers by president , ive been critical of some president s in the past democrats and republicans in the overreach of executive power, i am a trump as well, you and i come on differently i think on some of these topics which makes for a good conversation but im not having easy time thinking who that would be, i think is absolutely unique. And of the american president , john, been given the one minute warning, i think this wraps up the program at this point, i really enjoyed the conversation, you and i have known each other and would come back to upwards of the 1990s at Minnesota Law School where we first met, congratulations on your success with your books and your latest and i look forward to future conversations together. Mark, thank you a lot for reading the book and really engaging with hard questions, i really enjoyed it and i hope cspan will let me interview you when you come up with you next book. I hope so too. I hope so too. Thank you. Weeknights this month were featuring book tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan2, wednesday night starting at eight eastern New York Times journalist reported on a girl scout troop which was started for girls living in a homeless shelter in new york city and sparked a creation of similar troops around the country, and then American Interest contributing editor offered her thoughts on why some americans are moving away from traditional religion, later journalist Erica Barnett looked at addiction in america and discussed her own struggle with alcoholism. Enjoy book tv on cspan2. You are watching the tv on cspan2, every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. 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