Presented in your new book . Guest thanks for inviting me to come on with you and im looking forward to this conversation and as you know ive been an admirer of your work on executive privilege and this would be fun. I started out wary of President Trump and i was not a supporter of his in the 2016 election and what worried me was that he was a populist and a constitution seemed designed to stop populists. Its fairly antidemocratic in nature, in a lot of ways, like the senate and the judicial review and the Electoral College and the presence of the states as important part of the constitution so i was worried when trump came in as a populist who wants to achieve and agenda that he feels he received and he would strain against and go beyond the constitutional restraints on his power and i was worried at the beginning he was doing that and things like the travel ban, threats to build a border wall without congressional approval and in that early piece i urged them to try to use as president ial powers primarily for National Security and Foreign Affairs and instead to understand Domestic Affairs that his role is really to enforce the law and then to work with congress to get legislation passed. I think what happened since 2017 bill today is that i found his critics have become the ones who have, i think, gone too far in trying to stretch the constitution because they think so trump is so a gratis and they launched attack after attack on his legitimacy. Terms critics for example who have talked about getting rid of the Electoral College and who have talked about packing the Supreme Court to add six new members to get us to 15 and who want to return us to a world with permanent statutorily protected independent councils which, i think criminalize our politics. They want to nationalize large parts of our economy for a green new deal. The effect of that has left trump who is undeniably using the constitution more of a shield or using the constitution to pursue his own selfinterest but that leads to him to rely on more tradition interpretations of the constitution so i argue that either intentionally or unintentionally he has become more the defender of the traditional constitution and his critics. Host thank you. There are number of topics you cover here from executive orders and pardons and the border wall and impeachment process and i will try to go to some of these and get your take on the president s exercise of executive authority in these areas. Starting with the impeachment i do get the point you make that the president did not yield and did not apologize and attacked the legitimacy of the process but you also dont hold the president blameless for how he handled the controversy over phone call or that ukraine matter altogether. My question is is it really a win for the institution of the presidency and an affirmation of trumps defense of constitutionalism if he is defending his position in a situation that he himself created never should have happened in the first place . Guest i think he does, in the sense, at least in my mind, it reaffirms how the constitution intends us to deal with executive misconduct or abuse of power. Even though, as you say, may be trump created the problem in the first place by his unconventional approach to Foreign Policy or even as some people claimed his mixture of the Public Interest with his own private political interest in the deeper constitutional question, i thought, was how does the constitution try to constrain executives and i thought it really does it in two ways. The election process, i think, is foremost in terms of the framers view, how you constrain an executive and who you think is abusing powers and you elect congressional majorities and eventually you get him out of office. I thought the mistake that occurred here was that impeachment was being used for activity which fell short of the constitutional standard. Im not one and as i explain in the book i dont think impeachment requires a crime and i think high crimes and misdemeanors does include abuse of executive power but it has to be a serious one and it seemed to me the kinds of accusations that were being levied against President Trump were really designed for electoral process and wasnt one of those serious levels of treason or serious bribery with the bribery of the congress of the king of france had been paying off the king of england during the 17th century. That is what the framers had in mind and i thank you can see that in the founders requirement that the senate get to two thirds before it actually would remove a president even though it put impeachment in the hands of just a simple majority of how they wanted to make it difficult to remove a president to impeachment and that would then funnel the kinds of fighting we saw take place which would be properly funneled into the electoral process. Host let me go back deeper into some of the circumstances that led to that. The president likes to talk a lot about the deep state of officials who he believes and you give them some defense here in the book that did not accept this the legitimacy of the 2016 election and in the president s view they have acted to try to undermine a duly elected president and my ask here is that you address the very common gated issue of the principal loyalties of people who swore an oath to the constitution and not to their branch of government or to the president and who believe they have an obligation to honor that by bringing to the attention of authorities whether it is internal oversight or committees in congress and potentially illegal or unethical behavior. Guest i think this issue arrives twice, not just impeachment but with the russian collusion in both cases eddie raises a philosophical question and im not claiming trump is thinking deeply about political theory but i think his pursuit of his rational clinical selfinterest is advancing his creator constitutional good which is more tied to the 18th century constitutionals let me describe what he is fighting against in a way which is whether it is the fbi or gym call or whether members of the Foreign Service and the permanent National SecurityCouncil Staff i dont think of it as a deep state the way i think the phrase actually comes from turkey and the turkish bureaucracy. I think of it more as a more progressive era bureaucracy and the idea of which was most important Public Policy decisions are technical or scientific or professional and so you want to delegate power over those decisions to those experts and insulate them from politics, not increase political control but i think this is very much Woodrow Wilsons thought and had a great impact on our constitution. I think we see that in the fbi, national deoxy and in the Foreign Service. Trump embodies to meet more 18th century view what the exact brand is about witches we the voters elect the president , using the elect oral college, but hes the owner when charged with electoral power and enforcing the laws and everyone conducts Foreign Policy and enforcing the laws they are doing it as an assistant to the president so its much more political vision of the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is responsive to the president and hold him accountable through or her accountable through politics. To meet that is what happened in the impeachment and in the rush occlusion investigation is that you had permanent experts, Foreign Service or the fbi conclude that the president essentially was unfit for office and so they were, to me, that would not have competed to the founders is that they were challenging the head of their own branch is unfit and thats not really their job. I think youre right that as you say there is this impeachment system and congress does have the right. And the power to remove president s who abuse that power and they will gather some of that information from the executive branch and from people who work there. In that sense i dont think impeachment was off and in fact, i dont see how impeachment would run other than people saying the president misused his powers and those witnesses would be from the executive branch but it was the standard that the house and some members of the senate reusing is a high crimes and misdemeanors stands were not high enough. I would have thought all those things and impeachment were much more appropriate for oversight hearings to be brought out for spending cuts or the usual tools but congress uses two fights with the executive branch and ultimately put it before the voters as we willed this november. This will all be before us when we vote on the president this november. That is the better solution. You talk a lot about executive powers and prerogatives and tromped defending the institutional presidency and i wanted to go through some of the different powers of the presidency here. Starting with executive orders i think that is an easy one to talk about and of course the president has the authority to reverse actions by executive order or at least earlier executive orders but im asking that signing executive orders with president leadership, if we have a president ial joe biden next year i would imagine he will reverse or really a large number of executive orders and is there more of a legacy for a president to engage in the traditional process of negotiation, building consensus, getting compromise in congress and getting the wall street system that will have a greater deal of permanent permanency rather than just issuing willynilly large numbers of executive orders insane i did a lot of things . Guest i think that is a great point, mark. I think the book is approaching at the way you did but i think thats quite right. The way i think of it is that the president has this power of reversal and that was something i there are a lot of things president s can do unilaterally and they just reverse a lot of what the last one did but you are quite right, if the president only operates through executive orders he is laying his achievements vulnerable to super reversal when President Biden comes in generate 21. Only by working with congress to affect statutory change to you give it a kind of longlasting legacy and permanence. Quite agree with you that yes, President Trump like president obama had been frustrated by the inciting inviting a congress to get their agenda through it so naturally they will turn to executive orders but i dont think it is permanent so long as, i think the constitution says, as long as president had that power to quickly and neatly reverse any use of unilateral executive power by their predecessors which when we talk later but i think there was so much done by the Supreme Courts recent decision during the daca case which surprised me in the book is that i thought it would come out the other way and then i went through all the indications that would occur if the court actually did not allow present tromped to reverse the daca program. Host let me take a contemporary application then of this particular issue. Can the president issue an executive order to prohibit evictions as he said recently that he might like to do, even though it was congress that approved a temporary moratorium and would that be an appropriate use of an executive order . Or should the president simply work through the lawmaking process here as well . Let me add to that tiktok, can the president issue an exec of order banning tiktok . [laughter] guest im sure a lot of parents wish the president had that power right now. [laughter] what i think it is interesting. This president that president obama created an daca was creating a program by not fully enforcing the law. It leads to daca programs and has certain limits. For example, the rent eviction idea and i have not studied that closely but generally to me eviction laws is a state law issue so i dont see how the federal government by restraining its own prosecutorial discretion can have an effect on the states and whether they will evict people. Its not the same thing. Also, tik tok is more of a traditional use of executive orders you mentioned earlier. You inherit executive power but it can also be the more common executive order is the execution of delegated power from congress. Congress has given a huge amount of power to the executive branch to regulate International Economic security. Already i believe to have been National Emergencies declared in regard to china, a lot of it is companies and practices are under investigation by the fbi so if President Trump phantom, that seems constitutionally straightforward. It is a 1977 law that gives congress the president the sanction, national companies, transactions for National Security, if President Trump were to do it unilaterally without congressional sources, that would be a difficult question because i dont think without congress, theres no economic sanction power. Let me turn to another contemporary issue. The author i know, youre not writing during a pandemic, it was published late july but i was looking at your citation, i think the last source you cited was february less last year. Guilty as charged. [laughter] i think it is a good topic to bring up in regard to executive power because this is the biggest challenge of president ial leadership of our time. None of us expected this challenge and at one time, challenges at home are not unprecedented. Unfortunately, that is what happened in this particular case but. From china, it came from abroad. [laughter] well yeah, but it became a crisis in the president has an obligation to establish his leadership here in the country, theyve been really hungry for that. In the book, which you laid out the rest before the pandemic so he didnt have a chance for this manuscript to approach the president s leadership. Defendant trump is a Strong National leader but where was the leader during the outbreak when he said effectively, to the states, youre on your own. The federal government is not a shipping clerk. When governors were pleading for some help getting equipment and in this book, i dont think you could ignore the pandemic is a new chapter. President ial powers, what are you going to say in an exhibition when you discuss the pandemic in the president s leadership . That is the chapter i wish i could have done. I thought i would wrap up nicely, during his presidency, things just keep happening. It is interesting, and odd thing people are criticizing trump for too much executive power and then within a month, people are saying prior to doing more . I think its not the separation of powers thats the problem, it is federalism. No matter what the president s powers are in terms of billing and with the government can or cant do, the federal government still has limits. This is where it may be would have gone along with my thesis, trump actually has been respecting the federalism limits on his powers, even his own political detriment. They would have wanted to set standards or social distancing but the constitution doesnt give the federal government. The constitution is limited federal enumerated powers. Weve all had the understanding that Public Health and safety is primarily a state and local issue in the federal government can come in as a support. Frontline, the warfare of it fighting a pandemic or disorder is going to always be city and state local authorities so the federal government has been doing what its supposed to, it can provide money to the states, it can provide equipment and personnel and resources, it can fund a vaccine and technical research, it can spread information but the federal government doesnt really have the people, the actual mechanisms government to take care of the nationwide pandemic. Think about how many people the federal government even has, how can the and force of pandemic with social distancing . The entire fbi, the entire workforce is smaller than the new york police department. The real agencies of government, the public power in this widespread pandemic has to come from the State Government so it is interesting because i think of a president who wasnt conscious of those limits of power, when it tried to go beyond that. Political detriment has made within those boundaries. Fdr said in a situation like this, this is for the states and we are not a shipping corporation. I think thats what bothers so many people, they expect the president to be authoritative and how difficult is it to say, wear a mask . I argue in the book, thats why the founders created the presidency. Why even have an independent executive branch . When we have a system where the chief executive is just a leader of the majority party, the leader would have been nancy pelosi right now. It because they want a branch of government to act quickly and swiftly in time of emergency and unforeseen circumstances. We expect president s to do that and its easier to do that when you have an enemy attacking or natural disaster. Someplace where the president can use their own constitutional powers or invoke legislation that provides that emergency power but it seems to me, Something Like a pandemic is just outside the grasp of the national government. Its too large a problem, such a great social problem, it affects liberty. Please wear a mask in social distance. The president can create the law and enforcement. To make you wear a mask or stay 6 feet away from each other i hope its not a little walk. Handling this kind of crisis and some of the other systems, germany and australia for example, can theyve done a lot better than we have. Is there something in the system that led us to the situation were in right now with this pandemic in the president really was constrained the tools he had available to solve the problem in similar democracy . Mexico think President Biden had been president for hillary clinton, i dont think it would be all that different now just because of restraint on the president and the federal government comparing it to the performance of other federal systems, i think our system is a little different and there are so many governments. Trump is appointing justice judges so they will have federalism, to so if he has been pushing this federalism revelation going on with reagan. Think the federal system is slow to figure out overseas why you have to go through the to do it i think the state system is almost envious about the idea we will readily actually making an affirmative mistake the traditional traditions allow for experimentation, adaptation to local circumstances, competition between governments these are features of the constitutional system like ours is deeply suspicious of human nature and it does not easily assume you, or me or any expert get the answer frederick so if you cant, i would give government the power to impose immediately on the country . You could say thats going to mean system is slow, chaotic and maybe more prone to make mistakes by failing to act. We arent going to make a lot of mistakes by making the wrong choice, either. Or came out earlier and continues the sanctuary cities in the president s threat to withdraw federal funds from those localities, you care to comment on that reflection of terms view of federalism and how it drives these deep respect for the institutions at state and local levels in dealing with issues . It is interesting. Its important to separate the political rhetoric from the constitutional actions and he doesnt actually try to compel state and local officers to do the federal government spending. Supreme court issued decisions called anti commentary decisions which say state and local officers dont have to or cannot enforce federal law because they are not within the executive branch so the president cant tell them how to enforce federal law will remove governors so the court said state officers are their own government, they dont enforce federal law or have to coopera cooperate. So the court has suggested that this comes out of obamacare cases that the federal government can use bribery to get state and local officers to cooperate with Drug Enforcement or whatever subject. A little trouble attacks governors, when it comes time to actually moving state policy and the federal direction, he seems to rely on traditional tools. If you dont cooperate, we will give as much money as we did before which the court said was okay so long as its not a huge amount of money. We are not exactly sure what the huge amount is the amount they have been using have not been high. Trump had to really try to order governors or mayors to follow his program. The most part, the state of california here, city and state, theyve been come sanctuary cities and states in opposition to trump policies and nothing has really happened to them. May change subjects, the border wall. One of the controversial uses among the most controversial forces, here i want to address president shifting funds out of the department of defense to pay the wall when he did not get the full appropriation from congress he requested. What is the basis for the president s authority to circumvent Congress Power of the personal fashion . Why did they decided to leave us alone . I think critics of the border wall has attracted liberal and conservative thats, both sides. In his senators from both sides voted to override the decisions but this was to me, executive power. What happened is that Congress Gave the president quite a bit of how, trump is using it as past president s have. What trump did is declared a National Emergency and then one series of National Emergency, theres another law that says the president can transfer money between billing accounts so its a statutory question, and the president declare a National Emergency with border immigration . Is out the National Emergency that congress had in mind . You would have thought maybe National Emergency was originally like puma, not an explicit event or entity rather than a problem. Like a problem and on the other hand, cost president s have done the same. Sometimes i feel like people make arguments against trump that they did not make in the past so for example, president reagan declared a National Emergency when balls expired, if i cant control the technology abroad, president obama declared National Emergency on the swine flu president s have already used National Emergency so people s say, does that mean a President Biden could declare a National Emergency over Climate Change itself . It seems to me when you look at how president s have use of power and how congress has repeatedly tried to find National Emergency, maybe it is impossible to define what emergency is before hand. There will be more flexibility for the more president , he said immigration of the border, i can say Climate Change. Right. That is the danger there, president s creates presumptions of legality, past president s have done similar things, what is the standing of our constitutional standing moral that they dont really have established standing in any language of the constitution itself or evolution of constitutional judicial decisions . I think about distance leak, i think the founders, when they put the phrase executive power in the constitution, being guided more by Alexander Hamiltons writing, he had in mind energy, unity, speed, they wanted to face emergencies and crisis but they left undefined because its something they struggled over, how do you design a government to handle everything that will come at it that you dont even know about it . If you knew about it in advance, you could write about it and prepare and handle it to the president is supposed to be the to declare a National Emergency. Its wise to circumscribe it by written laws because you dont know what the problem will be so how do you check that . You create and slowly expand over time we have these accounts, keep recognizing and accepting these emergency decorations they dont have to essentially say were not going to review whether this is a National Emergency but i think what they expected was if there is going to be a limit, it is going to be congress. They were pretty clear, they said we expected them to counteract, use the constitutional powers to fight against each other so president s will slowly, over time, seek to expand power because there will be more circumstances and a growing country that people demand people are demanding trump handled the pandemic, why isnt he doing more . Its something been going on for probably 100 years, this hydraulic hydraulic political pressure on the president. This was going to have to come from congress, fighting back against it and you said i think congress has powers to pull the rug under the president if it goes too far. The boardwalk, congress doesnt pass to put any money into the account is using for the border wall if they really want to stop him. This is more a Political Science explanation, it seems like members of congress dont want to take stands on these difficult questions, theyd rather just blame the president for mishandling the president are going too far with this order and misusing Emergency Powers rather than congress saying we are going to stop it or support this situation because they have to re run for election. Are you comfortable with the president moving for the border wall the president makes the argument iran for election, i have a mandate. All president s say that of course and congress didnt give me the appropriation i asked for so im going to find other sources to fulfill my promise. It goes to what you said about permanence versus nature of executive power trump can do that for one year. He can invoke National Emergency act, then there is a statute which allows after the one year, he doesnt get anywhere unless he gets cooperation from congress. Thats only way to get funding. Interesting Power Congress has, to stop the president just by doing nothing. If they do nothing, they dont get refilled with more money every year. Congress has to put more money into these accounts trump is drawing from and they continue to do so, so congress has a lot of tools, they choose not to use them because i think they dont want to be politically accountable. But the president take all the heat if its a bad idea. Returned to the au address, authorization free use of military force enacted by congress in the wake of 9 11. You say this president ial authority extended to president obama and trump. Two decades after the initial authorization with the original terrorist organization effectively eliminated, when did military authorization and, reconsidering the war on terrorism now, endless war think its the president s authority to use force, is there an end game here or we can say this is not needed anymore . This is more a question of whether congress is living up to its own duties rather than president s i was involved back in the Bush Administration on drugs. On behalf of the justice department, making all levels but these 9 11 attacks were so unprecedented in our history. We didnt really know at that time with the enemy would take, what kind of acts there would be in the future so congress didnt pass, it has a limit to it but it could have, congress could have passed the statute. If you go back and look at past declarations of war, authorizations, use military force, they dont have that either. In particular, this is something with the resolution that didnt have, they passed a law cutting off all funding for vietnam. By the Time Congress understands this issue know about that. They chose not to so i dont think its a claim of president s claiming their constitutional power to far when congress and then Congress Continues to provide the money for the 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 permits you are asking about simply by not refilling that here for the things they oppose. On the one hand, you have numbers complaining but its still in effect and at the same time, they are happy to keep funding the expense of military operations in places like iraq, syria, potentially iran, afghanistan so whos really at fault here . Do you think congress should and that . If they want to. I dont think it is necessary. Is another interesting thing. Maybe the most difficult, what is the trump doctrine . Its got to be more than pingpong around. There are still laws and gravity explaining why they act the way they do. The hard thing was to step back trump every day, what is the larger motivation . Its interesting about the relationship between the executive and legislature in Foreign Affairs of war, weve got the president is trying to reduce and withdraw from places, terminating agreements and congress is actually wanting to stay. Want to reduce troops in germany what about the agreements of pairs of courts, to me that showed the president does have these powers in Foreign Policy that they did because Congress Really was the primary branch in Foreign Policy should really for the on key for work. How can the president do all these things on the flipside, the negative . How can they withdraw troops without congress . It shows that the president did have that discussion all along and it really was people upset about the president and using it to get us into obligations but not get us out. Let me turn to another topic. You say the president has the ultimate authority to access even though critics complain. I like to get the issue of the president of traditional phase, as opposed to react on it. Trump and take the country out of Mission International agreements. People on different sides will have different cases. What about a huge amount of criticism as to whether they were appropriate although as is the constitutional power he possesses is absolutely in this area. Im asking the question just because he can do it, because he does in the face of challenges in the party establishment, opposition leaders in congress, is that what makes him a great defender the founding principles of our republic . Not at all. I think you, as a political scientist or a better judge of the should he, rather than can he question. I do think where trump is successful as a president is your sense, should he is a very different question and whether President Trump was defending the proper prerogatives of the president. It might be ironic but may be all what he had is more the benefit of his successor and for joe biden, the person whos going to enjoy the fruits of all of these battles, hes going to be the next president because its a restoration of control of Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy and so on taking place in the four years. You will be able to use those to achieve policy. I think the argument in this book and maybe another book i wrote about ten years ago, what youre talking about is how you judge whether a president is great, whether or not they use their power to the full, tied up in the executive power which is use these circumstances, did the president i think of this as the difference between buchanan and lincoln. I hope listeners realize we are talking about buchanan abraham lincoln, here the unforeseen emergency crisis which is an and buchanan chooses not to use his power. He says this is a problem for congress to solve and he asked congress to act. It didnt come up with an answer. He says i have these Emergency Powers and i am going to energize problem from the challenges and it was the understood circumstances demanded in response to the powerpoint of your president , i think who uses the powers in the wrong time, it could be two ways. Like buchanan, is a great emergency, you do nothing. Maybe thats what people say about trump in the pandemic. Then theres no great challenge and you still involved the great powers of Office Design for those emergencies. That can lead to catastrophe. Thats like nixon were in a period of regular politics and he thought everything was a National Security emergency. So it is that application of constitutional power which will determine whether a president is successful. Let me stick with the parted issue, the president has issued controversial pardons. No doubt about that. What is troubling to some traditional, hes worked outside the traditional screening process of the office of the pardon attorney in the department of justice. I would argue clearly it is constitutional for him to do that. Article two power of the president , the pardon is absolute. Theres nothing that says he has to go through traditional screening processes. It exists for the purpose of trying to protect the president from issuing pardons. If the president wants to go it alone in circumstances like that and not go through the traditional framework in the department of justice before considering pardons there was no advice. I think if you were to pardon metaphor, it would be unfortunate use use of the pardon power. It is absolute. I think of the Pardon Office or theres this conflict between the constitution which does give me sole responsibilitys of powers to the president alone and in an effort, inspired by the Progressives Movement and government last century at the beginning of the last century to professionalize everything. Almost this idea voters doing a technical way to design between good pardons and bad pardons. His in inherently political decisions. As a professionally right answer. I was aware, i dont think roger stone is deserving, he violates the law. Congress threatened this but i dont think it is really legally correct or incorrect answer, its just a political decisions the president is we have to hold them accountable for in elections. I think it was a bad decision. Talk about the institutional prerogatives of the legislative clients. We talking about the exercise of executive powers and executive authority, you acknowledged the president had the right, and i agree with you there but what about impeachment power which is subject to a High Standard of standard for impeachment is whatever majority of the house says it is. Consensus of the house of representatives. Supreme court justice, it is not a good idea. [laughter] wasnt talking about nixon. In congress, he actually did advocate the sitting Supreme Court justice. It didnt go anywhere. I argue in my book, we have been accelerating with this idea of the Supreme Court and has the branches getting more favor and the court itself has done more to reinforce the and i do think theres some truth, this idea that the other branch interprets the constitution to and when it comes to the definition of the high crime and misdemeanor, the house really does interpret and so does the senate when they choose to equip. I dont think ford was right when it is whatever the senate thinks. Thats just locating what institutions to decide. Even the house and the senate has to apply their good faith best effort to say what we think misdemeanor actually means . Rather than just saying we can use it to impeach president s from the other political party. That would be a good test why fort is wrong. What if democrats in Congress Said we can basically remove any president which comes from the other party. That is not their job, the founders, if you turn the book, with the founders wanted to do was create an independent president and the impeachment power should not be transformed into a parliamentary system where congress is using it as a tool to control the president because they didnt believe the power to remove was the power to control. Thats why they set high crime standards in two thirds conviction requirement. You are an expert, not me on executive privilege. You tell me what i am allowed to talk about. The president has advice and people both within the white house and outside the white house. You have a right not to answer peoples questions. So standby on that one. Anyway, are there areas where the president has acted unilaterally we would advise him to step back and build a consensus in congress to get things done . The very issue that drew me to the white houses immigration so before the Supreme Court issued its opinion month and a half ago, president s have these responsible these the constitution says to take care to faithfully execute it. President s have to enforce all the laws, that doesnt mean they enforce them equally because the president has discretion to choose resources for bringing cases for Greater Public benefit. We dont necessarily want to have offices chasing down every person who has any marijuana in their pocket. On the other hand, i dont think that means president could say im going to make, enforce this law 20 and i think thats what president obama did. At the time of august 2012, i thought i criticized the decision, i sympathize and he says i would like to deal to work out a solution for children right here with immigration laws but to parents who have American Children but the parents themselves are not here legally but i also think the constitutional power is for congress and i would have said until this came out a month and a half ago, President Trump was correct to say i dont have power to create that program. Thats what policy choice in the constitution brings to congress. The better solution for immigration i think, and i would like to see immigration levels did maybe by ten times or even three times current levels. Only when you get a settlement, a permanent solution, something that wont be unstable because they can go and change it back and forth. Set out a new visa category how to passed by congress think it is better for the recipients, beneficiaries because youre never really sure whether your status is legal because Congress Never made a decision about that so when president could always take it away. Got four minutes left. Its been a lot of fun a bit of an out there question but i think it is a good closing one and if it is a short answer, well think of another answer. The president in history as trump most resemble . I want to hear your answer because i think about this a lot. It reminds me a lot of Andrew Jackson. It goes all the way back to the scene which was will he was a populist, jackson was the first populace. His campaigns are similar to trumps or john quincy adams, harvard educated, conducting diplomacy of his parents when he was 13 years old. He spoke so many languages. We couldnt create a better character of a better elite of quincy adams. He represents the rough and tumble new frontier population in america that eventually overthrows new england elite is a country there. Jackson, you would expect would come in and try to overthrow everything because hes a populist but in the end, he relies on the people who dont like him, they want to impeach him, too. They didnt have the votes so the center Andrew Jackson for his efforts to defeat the bank. Its interesting when jackson invokes the constitution, he doesnt in an almost defensive way. He issues this long outrageous defense in his actions saying i rely on executive power, power over Law Enforcement as a defense to a i did. Fired the treasury secretary. He moved money out of the bank and state banks and he says have this way of doing it and its a shield. It reminds me a lot of trump. I dont know if trump will go down historically like Andrew Jackson did but hes equally disruptive of the political order and at the same time, he is relying on this spartan president ial power of removal and Law Enforcement even before trump came up with his signature line, Andrew Jacksons line should have been, youre fired. [laughter] who do you think he most resembles . I think trump is an evolution in the american presidency and modern era for the vast expansion of exercise of unilateral independent powers by thousands. Ive been critical of some president s in the past with the overreach of executive powers. I come down a little different differently, i think. It makes for a good conversation but im not having an easy time finding who it would be. He is absolutely unique. So ive been given the one minute warning. This wraps up the program at this time. I enjoyed the conversation, you and i have known each other back to the 1990s in Minnesota Law School we first met. Congrats on your success in your books and your latest one and i look forward to future conversations together be back thanks a lot for reading my book and engaging in on very hard questions. I enjoyed it and i hope cspan will let me interview you when you come up with your next book. I hope so, too. Thank you. Your watching book tv on cspan2. Every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and other. Cspan2, created by americas Cable Television company is a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Coming up, President Trump will hold a News Conference at the white house or have live coverage at 5 30 p. M. Eastern here on cspan2. Online at cspan. Org with the free cspan radio up. Weeknights, this month, we are featuring book tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend too. Tonight, 48 00 p. M. Eastern, New York Times journalist stuart reported on a girl scout troop which was started for girls living in a homeless shelter in new york city and sparked the creation of similar trips around the country. American interest contributed after offering 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 struggles with alcoholism. Enjoy book tv on cspan2. Live coverage of the Democratic NationalConvention Continues tonight with former secretary of state, hillary clinton, democratic Vice President ial nominee emily harris and former president barack obama. Watch live coverage of the Democratic National convention tonight 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, Live Streaming and on demand at cspan. Org dnc or listen with the free cspan radio up. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. Princeton University History professor, explored political former speaker of the house, argued his congressional leadership was the beginning of amer