To the National Constitution centers interactive constitution. A panel of academics on President Trumps use of executive power hosted by the Heritage Foundation. This is an hour. Good evening, everyone. Thank you very much for coming to the hosted event with the Heritage Foundation. We are just a year into the frum trump presidency. At the oneyear mark, you would think people professionally analyze politics and would have conducted competent evaluation of how the president has executed his constitutional goodies. Since the President Shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, there is much to discuss. Given that President Trump has taken away from the paths of his predecessors and given the boldness of many policies. Beside controversial boldness, in many ways, President Trump has also been a rather conventional republican president , rolling down regulation, dealing with the minister of state and appointing justices and trying work with congress on legislation. If you are looking for such a legislation, you would be lost in the hysteria surrounding trump, the man, what he may have implied. Here are three editorial titles that nicely incap sue late the tone of the Public Square today. Everyone in trump world knows he is an idiot. Odds are russia owns trump. Is it time to call trump mentally ill . This isnt interest the onion. Its from the new york times. The press, in encouraging or inciting fanatical hatred does disservice to the public. The president s aim was to bolster public reason and enlightenment. What seems like moral righteousness may be hatred on the challenge to their dominance over Public Opinion. Their freedom to abuse the public mind causes their pride to go and distorts their judgment further. We would like to take a step way from trump, the man, the twe tweeter, the gossip. We want to look at trump, the executive. At the oneyear mark, what has the president done in terms of executing his constitutional duties . We have assembled a topnotch panel to try and tackle this. Ryan williams, the president of the Claremont Institute, will be our moderator and he will field questions. Speaking first on Law Enforcement and immigration is john fon tte, senior fellow and director and author of the book called sovereignty or submission, will americans rule themselves or be ruled by others. Speaking next will be adam white, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and director of the center of the study of Administrative State at george mason university. We have professor Charles Kesler that will speak on the president s use of the bully bully pulpit. He is a distinguished professor of government at Claremont Mckenna college and author of i am the change, barack obama and the crisis. John, take it away. Thank you. Im going to talk about President Trump and immigration policy. We could view immigration policy three ways, through the lens of a citizen, the lens of a client, or the lens of a consumer. There was a small r republican view of immigration through the lens of citizenship. Progressives view immigration through the lens of identity politics. B what matters most is ones race, ethnicity and gender. In this framework, there are xlints a clients and service providers. Third, for some libertarians, what matters is not whether one is a citizen or a client but the consumer. For them, the transnational consumer in the global marketplace is superior to the right of a free people to rule themselves by determining, for example, their own immigration policy. Immigration enforcement by the Trump Administration is an example of republican government, small r, based on the principle of sovereignty of the people. Those Core Principles of sovereignty and dissent are directly challenged by progressives and some libertarians. On the executive left, nancy pelosi makes a clear case for open borders. Quote, she says, we are all americans, north and south in this hemisphere. This is a community with a border running through it. So much for citizenship. Libertarian of the Cato Institute declares, americas founding principle is the enlightenment theory of national rights. Freedom of movement is indispensable to the full use of those rights. To respigtrict an immigrants ability not only infringes upon his natural rights but americans that want to hire him. Tom west in the political theory the american founding explains that the approach vetoes the theory. There is no right to immigrate unless there is consent on both sides, unquote. Illegal immigrants are here without the consent of the people. Lets just jump into the weeds on immigration. What we see is a unitary executive in action with dhs secretary neilson, acting director of i. C. E. , tom holeman, attorney general Jeff Sessions, xheef chief of staff john kelly, and the president all on the same page as immigration. I. C. E. Is going into sanctuary jurisdictions. The acting director of i. C. E. , tom holman said, if he, jerry brown, thinks i. C. E. Is going away . We are not. We are going to increase our enforcement presence in california. In december and january, i. C. E. Conducted raids in california, new york city, chicago, new jersey. In new jersey, 80 of them had prior felony convictions. Some argue that sanctuary policies are needed so that immigrants will not be afraid and come forward and report crimes and so on. This myth has no basis in reality. The 2009 analysis by university of virginia found no decline of crime after the implim tatiemen of tough programs. Consider prince county. It has been a sanctuary city since 2014. Because of ms14, people live in control. Gang control over local businesses is enforced through ex portion a extortion and intimidation. The rebirth of ms13 was fueled by recruits through massive wave of unaccompanied minors from south american. The Obama Administration gave silence to boys 16, 17, and older and placed them many times with illegal immigrant relatives where they were often recruited by ms13. The Trump Administration has cracked down on ms13. I. C. E. Has conducted raids from september to november, 2017, and arrested hundreds of ms13 gang members in cessationist i mean includes murders, drugs, trafficking and blackmail. The Justice Department under Jeff Sessions has demanded documents for 23 sanctuary jurisdictions under the 1996 immigration law. Justice has threatened to recoup fund previously given out and cut off future grant money to 23 jurisdictions which include chicago, cook county, new york city, denver, los angeles, san francisco, louisville, kentucky, jackson, mississippi, and the three states of california, illinois and oregon. The department of justice is reexamining the policy of administrative closure, which many considered back door amnesty by the Obama Administration. There are 350,000 closed cases, illegal aliens that could be deported. The cases are just closed. Backlogs it turns out have increased. There are 658,000 bag log cases, over 1 Million People with immigration violations. Attorney general sessions is now reviewing to see what categories might be reopened. In addition, he is hiring additional Immigration Judges that work for the Justice Department in the bureau of immigration appeal. Lets go into the weeds and look at one example of vetting. Vetting people coming into this country. Lets take the k1 fiancee fee visa. Remember the woman involved in the mass murder attack in san bernardino, california, was admitted under the k1 visa. There are two steps. The first step is a petition by an american citizen for his alien fiancee to immigration service. This is supposed to include face to face interviews. This process of face to face interviews was often skipped during the Obama Administration. They approved 90. 5 of this first step. That was in the last year of obama. First year of trump, it is down from 90 to 66. 2 . There was a lot of fraud in the program and they started having actual interviews with people. Thats the first step. The second step, the alien fiancee is interviewed at a u. S. State Department Councilor office. Under obama, 99 approval. Under trump, an increase of denials of 20 . A lot of fraud and poor vetting on this program. Thats being cleaned up. Another program and office created by executive order of the president called voice, victims of immigration crime engagement. It is created to assist victims of illegal immigrant crime. Some conservatives at National View wrote that voice would serve no good purpose, unquote. Actually, the office served several good purposes. It is a challenge to the sanctuary jurisdictions that protect criminal aliens and release them to the general population. Kate steinles murder, for example, in san francisco, had illegally entered the United States over six times, deported five times and served over a year in various prisons on the west coast for numerous felony convictions. We need to delegitimate the entire sanctuary city movement. This is the occupation of the moral high ground. The grand narrative that explains the immigration story to the public. The creation of voice is one instrument and should be used to seize the offensive. Fighting for immigration policy that serves first and foremost, the american people. In conclusion, i want to say that almost all of President Trumps Immigration Enforcement measures have been fought tooth and nail by progressives, some libertarians and elements of the Administrative State. Never doubt on this issue, progressives and many libertarians are allies and major ad vversaries of immigratn Law Enforcement and a democratic society. Thank you. [ applause ]. Thank you very much to the Claremont Institute and the Heritage Foundation for inviting me today. It is a special privilege to be on this stage. Heritage is so much a part of us on Regulatory Reform. Some folks in the audience today who do important things, it is a real honor and privilege to share moment to offer a few thoughts on the Administrative State and President Trumps attempts to reform it. So the second year of a president ial administration is an important Inflection Point for forming regulations an reigning in the Administrative State. At the claremont event i feel safe quoting winston churchill, the start of year two, is, quote, not the end, its not even the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning. And at this point i think we can safely say the Trump Administration is off to a great start on many of the major reforms of administrative regulatory excess that defined the Obama Administration. At this point i think we can also ascertain a danger in President Trumps own excess, a danger both in principle and in practice by which i mean if President Trump wants to succeed in reforming the Administrative State for the long return, then i hope he will significantly change his own use of the bully pulpit to help further that aim. So lets start with the administrations good start. Recently the office of information and Regulatory Affairs reported that the administration has already either stopped or delayed nearly 1,600 proposed pending regulatory actions. Thats on top of the 15 major regulations that the administration has already rolled back perhaps permanently through use of the Congressional Review Act and in addition to that all of the myriad Reform Efforts being undertaken by the agencies, the individual agency level through the notice and comment process. Its an amazing start. Now, in the aftermath of president Obamas Administration perhaps any Republican Administration would have undertaken at least some Regulatory Reforms, but President Trump and this white house an unprecedented emphasis on the use of executive orders as a tool for energizing and steering the reform process. Of all the things i could focus on in terms of success so far in this administration, i think thats the point that really merits the most attention, that use of executive orders as a tool for executive energy. Instead of waiting for agencies to identify and pursue the right priorities, President Trump issued executive orders setting the agencies agendas from the top. Now, to be clear already limits on what a president can obtain lawfully through executive orders. He cant order agencies to ignore lawful statutes, but when statutes afford agencies broad discretion as they almost always do, then the president can use executive orders to further direct and channel the agencies use of that discretion. And that is precisely what President Trump did in at least two important ways. First, he issued executive order 13777 requiring agencies to repeal two old rules for every new one and capping the total costs that agencies can impose on society. President s dating back to reagan have used across the board executive orders to oversee and channel the agency process, but this executive order and these particular tools were new and i think an important and welcome innovation in redoubling the white house efforts to oversee, manage and limit the regulatory process across all executive agencies. Because its a new approach, especially at the federal government, it will take some ironing out in practice, but its an innovative and important development. Second, in addition to that across the board executive order, President Trump issued many executive orders targeting specific agencies or policies for reform. In executive order 13772 he announced new Core Principles for financial reform, for financial regulators to vindicate, an executive order 13783 he announced new policies for Energy Independence and Economic Growth to be pursued first and foremost by the epas reform of obamas unlawful and excessive clean power plan. These are two of several examples i could offer of executive orders that ex emp phi the administrations approach to Regulatory Reform. Energetic is the keyword because i think these executive orders ex emp phi lengths dear hamiltons view of good government. As he described in federalist 70, energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. While we usually recall hamiltons appeal in terms of national security, hamilton stressed domestic governance as well. President trumps executive orders so far are a good and important example of a president energetically leading the executive branch, the administrative apparatus and conveying energy to an agency leadership. Furthermore, these orders promote transparency and accountability. After all, theyre signed by the president , the president is expressly endorsing and directing these policies so accountability flows all the way up to the top and not just getting trapped in the bureaucratic apparatus. These policies are connected to the president himself and in our constitutional system thats a good thing. His agencies will need that energy in the days and years to come when his administrations Regulatory Reforms will face immense challenges in the courts, in the court of Public Opinion and even within the agencies themselves thanks to the socalled selfstyled resistance movement. Frankly as we enter this stage of the process i think President Trumps own rhetoric will make the work of reform harder not easier to complete. Consider this, last year federal agencies began myriad notice and common proceedings to undo obama agency regulations. This year the notice and comment process in lots of those cases will end. The agencies will complete their process and the matter will turn to court where parties will challenge those policies for skeptical judges. Judges are supposed to be fairly deferential to the agencies conclusions, but that traditional deferential approach presumes a fair amount of expertise and reasonableness on the part of the executive branch. How deferential will judges be to trumps agencies, at least on significant or controversial policies . I think last years Immigration Reform lawsuits which john just referred to a moment ago may be a forbearer of whats to come in terms of the judges scrutinizing the agencies with extra skepticism given how the president conducts himself in public and how he himself talks about the policies, the aims that his administration is pursuing. Now, that is a shortterm concern. Here is a much more significant and longer term concern, genuinely sustainable longterm Regulatory Reform requires serious legislation. This is a generational project, of course, but there is at least some cause for hope in the future. In the senate, for example, a Bipartisan Coalition of senators introduced major reforms to the administrative procedure act, the 70yearold body of law that governs us. Senators portman and hatch were joined by heitkamp and manchin for serious reforms to the epa, but to enact reforms to the epa let alone reforms to substantive laws like the clear air act will require sustained legislative dialogue and bipartisanship. President trumps use of the bully pull pill make this longterm bipartisan dialogue more likely to succeed or less . President trump did not create our political divisions but he is exacerbating them through his singular use of the bully pulpit. Where Teddy Roosevelt coined the phrase bully pulpit to describe his use of the white house as a pulpit for preaching his agenda, President Trumps pronouncements are serving much different ends to much different effect. This is regrettable as a matter of constitutional principle, but its also counterproductive as a matter of his administrations own agenda. The better approach is one exemplified by the president whose birthday we mark today. George washington stressed that, quote, the foundation of our National Policy will be laid in the pure and principles of private morality and the precede eminence of free government will be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world. As with so many things president washington was right. An american president should promote republican virtue in the public good, not detract from it and the white house should be a bully pulpit for winning the affection of our citizens and commanding the respect of the world. I hope President Trump will begin to do so for the good of his country and for the good of his own administrations important reforms to the Administrative State. Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, its very its a lovely occasion and im very happy to be here and i wanted to especially thank Arthur Milikh who has put together this interesting panel. My focus is not on executive power or the Administrative State, those have been covered, but the bully pulpit. And i should begin by distinguishing that subject from the pulpit the bully in the pulpit which is, i think, the way a lot of people in washington look at donald trump in general and especially trumps rhetoric. But what i thought i would do actually was in a very quick and preliminary way Say Something about the specific character of President Trumps use of the bully pulpit in terms of classical rhetorical analysis. Those of you who have encountered aristotles rhetoric, perhaps long ago in some classroom, may recall that there are three characteristics that or a tore and especially political speech of almost any kind exhibits. Three characteristics and aristotle called these efos, pathos and logos, three forms of proof really that an or a terror a political receipt or rigs uses every time he attempts to influential an audience. The first is ethical proof meaning what is the character of the speaker . What does the audience think about the speaker and how does he use the audiences perception of his character to help him in his persuasive endeavor . Rhetoric political speeches is always about more than the arguments, its about the character of the person making the argument, is he believable, does he reach you and that leads to the second characteristic, pathos or passion. What passion is in the audience does the speaker appeal to . How does he attempt to play upon and to win the audiences trust in him and to move their emotions in the direction of his arguments and argument logos, reason, is the third characteristic. So youve got the proof from character, the proof from the passions and the proof from reason. So as i say, something very briefly about each of these in connection to President Trump. So first i would say although im risking many generalizations here that the leading element in the ethical presentation of trump, you might say, how does he present himself ethically, is a form of courage. As a speaker he starts from and returns to a sense of courage in defense of ones own. Other speakers obviously start from a different sort of ethical reputation. Courage in defense of ones own doesnt require that one be perfect or ethically highminded necessarily. In a certain respect, therefore, its very suitable for President Trumps political speech because he has a problem on the front of ordinary ethics and morality. If you dont believe me, read any never trumper. Since the entire for two years the never trumpers have poured inn vek testify on the very bad character of mr. Trump for very many reasons. But after two years i dont think they have really advanced our understanding of mr. Trump, his agenda, his talents or our understanding of the political situation of the country, but they have produced a very large pile of invective, which is getting larger every day. The amazing thing is how competitively ineffective this argument has been. It has been repeated again and again and again on the left, on the right, on television, in editorial columns mr. Trump is a very bad man,s liar i dont mean to go into the specifics, you know what they are. Hes accused of many vices and many sins. But the amazing thing is to me that these arguments have not really inhibited his believability in the political sense. They have not prevented him from winning political victories, impressive political victories, in the past year and they have not proved the trump card that his opponents have thought they would prove, although it certainly is their long suit, these kinds of arguments. On the contrary, and precisely because he takes his stand on a way on a certain kind of assertiveness, a certain kind of courage, you know, these things are less important to his to his audacity and if i may use an obama word to his assertiveness than they would be if he were starting from a different point of view. Some examples of what i mean by courage in this particular way. One of the peculiar arts of trumps rhetoric is that he lacks almost completely the typical republican guilty conscience on the question of race and civil rights. I mean, it is really quite amazing. He is almost alone in this. Every other virtually every other republican, virtually any of the 16 other candidates who ran against him had a very typical Republican Point of view on the question of civil rights and race, which is they feel guilty about their partys, you know, southern strategy, their partys complicity in resisting affirmative action and various other kinds of things. There is as far as i can tell nothing of that in mr. Trump. He is much closer, let us say, to the position of Clarence Thomas than he is to on this question of race and racial remedies than he is to the position of jeb bush or any other major republican contender who might come to mind. He doesnt its not as important in a way for his own arguments as it is obviously for Clarence Thomas, but i think it is still quite remarkable. Also the kind of courage that more specifically that he represents is associated in a way with his reputation as a builder, and he calls himself a builder, he calls america a nation of builders. He is many things besides that. He knows his way around a construction site, he also knows his way around a tv studio. His career has included things other than being a landlord or a builder, but still that is where he comes home. That is what that is how he chooses to present himself. He associates himself, you might say, almost perhaps involuntarily with a certain kind of brazen masculine assertive ethics that comes with that job, the job of a builder. He gets things done, he is impatient with words or mere verbiage. He will build a beautiful building, he will but he will build it quickly and he will build it profitably, and you can count on that. So i would say one could go on and flesh this out and the question of courage radiates, but enough for that. On the question of pathos or what is the passion to which he appeals in the audience. I think the clue here really is the term greatness. Make America Great again. His appeal to the passion skews to the noble, lets say. He doesnt neglect justice, which is the fundamental political passion, but he really his heart seems to be more in the noble than in justice as such. He certainly is capable of attacking the injustice of a political establishment, for example, that has monopolized money and income streams in america and for the last 20 years or so, but he is in a way more eloquent and more naturally, i think, persuasive when the subject is the adjoining one of the way they have attempted to monopolize honor. The way they look down on the white working class. The way they look down on the poorly educated. Remember this during the campaign, he said at one point looking at poll results, i love the poorly educated. Something no other republican candidate would ever say. And so this you know, this disdain for the disdainers, this defense of popular honor against the experts and the ruling class, you might say, gives him a very key nose for unearned success and for liberal hypocrisy, which is a very important arrow in his quiver. I mention only one word, pocahontas. Final thing on this question of logos or the actual argument that is typical of so far at least of President Trump. I mean, as a nonpolitician and as very much an amateur in the field of politics, trump is in some ways a little logos liked. Hes not he doesnt have historical examples, he doesnt have a kind of ready set of comparisons like most political speakers and politicians would, he just hasnt thought like that. He hasnt read those things in his long earlier life, but still one could say that whereas, say, reagans logos in a way went to the question of limited government and recovering limits on government, trumps goes to the integrity of the nation. To being one people. A people that is worthy of love, being Americans First. I think America First is in a way a distraction from the argument hes really making because its not essentially it is not an isolationist argument and it is not essentially a Foreign Policy argument, its an argument from the nature of political life or political right that a nation that justice like charity ought to begin at home and there is nothing you know, there is nothing radical about that, theres nothing new about that appeal, and yet, you know, in the early 21st century it comes across i think as strikingly courageous and different from the kind of political argument that one hears elsewhere. Essential to putting Americans First is putting the peoples authority, their sovereignty, over that of the government, including that of the Administrative State and directing executive power on their behalf to their ends. With that, i shall subside. Thank you. Thank you, charles. Thank you, adam and thank you, john, for your remarks. I also wanted to echo charles and the rest of the panelists in thanking Arthur Milikh and david asrad, the director, thanking heritage for graciously providing a space for this argument. This is one that the Claremont Institute is going to continue to have. We think the current trajectory and future trajectory of the Trump Administration, the conservative movement, the Republican Party is a very important question, its a question that gets to fundamental questions of the structure of our regime and its one really that goes back to a rolling crisis in American Government thats at least 40 years old, i think, perhaps inaugurated by reagans breakup of the old liberal consensus, which before that was a progressive consensus which wanted to reorient government away from the view from the founding of limited government, separation of powers and most importantly for our topic today, i think, and political control of the branches of government and to replace it with administrative rule, expert rule, neutral the neutral science of government and its instantiation in an independent rather than completely dependent rulers. Many of us at claremont think that was the question at stake in this last election. Great disagreement over trump helps stoke these fires and i think and hope we will continue to make this debate both passionate and high minded. Soest that the spirit of this panel today. I dont mean to pick on adam, but i thought one thing that you said directly spoke to this larger context and to the extent that i agree with john and charles a little bit more i just thought it might be a nice jumping off point for us after which point we can open it up for questions. But you said that President Trump did not create our current political divisions but he is exacerbating them. Yes. And i think thats true, but i think maybe i might view it more positively than you do. So to the extent that our mod aern Political Parties especially over this 40year period have sorted themselves idealogically into these two camps of which i spoke, this sort of progressive rule by expert on the one side and then the return to limited government and popular control on the other, to the extent that that that we are at lager heads on that question which is a regimelevel question, dont we need to heighten the contradictions in the old marxist phrase continue the exacerbation and one of these parties has to win this argument definitively and advance for a generation or more on a project of reform. You brought up washington, but dont forget jefferson who in the election of 1800 said we are all republicans, we are all federalists, but what he meant was we won, so really we are all republicans now. The Federalist Party of course was no more after that. So throw that open for all three of our panelists. Well, i will grant the point that the principles that im glad to see this administration pursuing in terms of fundamentally reforming the Administrative State, principles that i dedicate my work towards, principles that you and the Claremont Institute, all of us dedicate our work towards, those are things on which you fundamentally cannot and must not compromise as a matter of constitutional principle. To the extent that the progressive project of the 20th century was fundamentally at lager heads with that basic view of constitutionalism, american constitutionalism, progressivism was at odds with that, i think it was. I agree i think amplifying the differences between our approach and their approach and trying to rally the American Public to our side rather than theirs is a noble cause. I didnt mean to suggest otherwise. In the meantime, though, there are reforms that can happen, important reforms that can happen. Again, i singled out one in particular. Its not going to be enacted this year, it might not be enacted for years but these fundamental reforms to the administrative procedure act, that is something that can be achieved in a political lifetime and its something that i think we should strive towards. I do not see that becoming more likely in light of the way President Trump talks about his opponents, talks about other americans. I mean, i could go on at length and i dont want to belabor the point, but i do think its important that the fight to reform American Government, to bring it back to structural constitution, its fundamentally important, but i never thought that the moment at which we would be seeing advances on that would be the exact same moment at which so many republicans would be down playing the importance of that other fundamental constitutional value, the one that the framers talked about in the federalist papers while at the same time that they were a u. Talking about structural constitutionalism. Thats republican virtue, the virtues republican government presupposes more than any other form of government. I really am uncomfortable with seeing that side of republican republican government and american constitutionalism being downplayed in service of pursuing the structural constitution. Iel real ee ee eel i really let go of that fight. I think we all share the goal what adam is saying, the return of the constitution, lets put it simply that way. The problem is with the Progressive Left its basically now dominant in most of the major institutions in our country, weve discussed the Administrative State, but besides the administrative think of what i like to think of as the cultural aviathan, thats the mainstream media, the universities, the human rights departments of fortune 500 companies, silicon valley, hollywood, the mainline churches. The fact that George Washingtons plaque was removed from Christ Church where he went in virginia tells us something about our culture. So the conservative movement cant simply be talking about republican virtue or taking these small steps, it has to and this is since the left was taken over all of these institutions by a revolutionary means there has to be a rather vigorous almost revolutionary opposition to this progressive project to overthrow this progressive project. I like to think in terms of no Political Movement has succeeded without having both bad cops and good cops and that includes the american revolution, were talking about washington and adams but theres also tom payne and sam adams who without them i dont think washington and adams would have succeeded. So the bad cop with the good cop. What you have is a strange situation. Usually the Vice President is the bad cop, here you have the president actually playing the bad cop role, but as charles said, since no other republicans wanted to do it, it had to be done by somebody. Id say first of all that i agree with almost everything adam said. I dont think theres anyone who wouldnt like to reach for the edit button on the twitter feed of the president occasionally at least. But the other side, the reason why where i would depart from you a little bit at least is the other side of republican virtue is republican corruption and the question now i think is how and to what extent republican institutions including constitutional ones are corrupted. The great example is congress it seems to me or at least one of the first examples is congress. The problem of the Administrative State could not exist without congress which created the Administrative State. It cant be solved without congress. But Congress Seems very comfortable with the Administrative State, it enjoys a lot of benefits from the Administrative State, it avoids a lot of pains and costs because of the Administrative State and it shows very, very little virtue in terms of a will to reform itself in order to return in some sense popular control of the government to the people through their congress. Populism has always seemed to me in a way a word of limited usefulness in describing whats going on in our politics now because in the era of the Administrative State the people can do very little themselves directly. There are elections, but theres very little else that they can do. There are few handles they can seize to change the government. The courts will stop them, i mean, we have many examples in california of conservative initiatives that passed using the techniques of direct democracy only to be struck down by courts, federal courts or state courts, very activist courts, and many of the ways in which, you know, a people could get control of its government again, i dont need to tell you this, are not available right now or at least dont have much efficacy. It would be very useful if the president would actually speak to that problem and put some pressure on congress morally and intellectually on that point. If hes looking for subjects for tweets, theres a huge subject there waiting for him. I think we have some time for question questions. This is for you, dr. Kesler, and, adam, you might want to chime in as well. I know you were talking about President Trumps ethos and his form of courage and defense of his own and how its not really having an effect now, but do you think in the longterm it might impact like, you know, the midterms or maybe the next election, because to me personally it feels like we are at year eight instead of year one or year two, and i just dont know if maybe that is leading to like the start of exhaustion or something. I understand your sentiment. I mean, i wrote many months ago now that the president risks inducing a state of nervous exhaustion in the country and i think that is a danger. Its not a danger i mean, its a danger that proceeds from the peculiar way he exerts his courage, if you want to call it that. The kinds of fights he picks. Many of which he cant win, but he can i mean, he cant win the fight, but he can get some benefit out of having the fight, but theres also a particular cost to that, which is that the public is consumed perhaps more than it needs to be or ought to be by the day to day, you know r, controversies that the president sometimes unleashes. And i think that is a problem for him. I mean i mean, you know, theres in politics every advantage has a disadvantage and vice versa. Hes done reasonably well, i think, in the first year, very well in certain respects in his first year, so lets see what happens. Charles referred to President Trump inducing a state of exhaustion. Im sure we all feel exhausted from time to time with the political maelstrom, but looking ahead to the next election cycle i wonder if hes not inducing quite different. I think if anything President Trump is inducing among his political opponents, his critics, to borrow a famous line from michael antons article they now face a flight 93 election. He is given to them ironically the same sense of doom that in many ways amplified his own political base. Its hard to imagine democrats not seeing the next president ial election as their own flight 93 election. I think what hes doing is what he has done successfully is to push the overton window, the climate of opinion that the swedes call it the opinion corridor, issues that were never discussed before, in fact, getting back to immigration for a moment, a majority now favor limiting legal immigration, which would have been unheard of a couple years ago. The latest Harris Harvard poll. And this is basically due to President Trump and its this expansion of the overton window. As far as exhaustion, everybody does at some point every president does white house himself with the public, but i think whats happening here by moving the overton window i think he has made it impossible to go back to the mccains and romneys, jeb bush. I think now there is the situation has altered within the Republican Party. Wait for the microphone, if you would. [ inaudible question ] and the sense of historical overreaction to everything that the man does began before he was sworn into office. So i dont think its fair to lay this sense of exhaustion entirely at the feet of the president. No. No. And i wouldnt do that. It is i mean, it is the media that creates the moment here of exhaustion, but and without the existence of social media we would be having a very different kind of conversation about this. I mean, its not all his fault, but he has exploited the technologies and the opportunities that have come to him in a very rigorous way to move the climate of opinion, but i will say that the test in the long run is is he persuading people . I mean, you can you can move them because of immediate concerns, interests, fears, but are you changing the minds of your own party and then the majority of the country in the long run . And that is his challenge. Thats his major challenge, i think, and that is very hard to measure certainly this early in a term. I just want to follow up on that question. When this is a bully pulpit, right . Doesnt it seem perhaps hes using it more to keep the media off guard and give voice to people who would have an opinion who cannot have an opinion . Is that the purpose of the bully pulpit . Well, i mean, as adam said, the term is really an invention of Teddy Roosevelt and he meant it to imply that the powers of the president are not limited to those actually specified in article ii of the constitution and that one of the most important powers he has is simply the power to fascinate the country and to concentrate the attention of the country on the moral message or the political message that he is delivering. Through that to move Public Opinion and thus the congress. That is what since Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt we have called leadership. And that was originally in a way a critique of energy, a critique of the notion that the idea was there is not enough energy in the executive. The constitutional powers dont give him enough enough play in american politics. He is not he wasnt you know, the president didnt used to be at the center of american politics in quite the way he has been ever since Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson basically in the 20th century. And so there are some interesting constitutional implications or questions to be raised about about the bully pulpit, but it is now, you know, an accepted part of american political life obviously for liberals and conservatives and democrats and republicans. I just wanted to add the last great reforms in service of rolling back the Administrative State, the great Structural Reforms were early in the Reagan Administration. President reagan campaigned on the need for Regulatory Reform, easing regulatory burdens, making government more accountable. In the very opening weeks of reagans first term his task force created this new apparatus, the structure for white house overseeing of agencies. The white house undertook a sustained campaign in soupport f their reforms and furthermore the white house undertook a sustained investment of resources and seeing those reforms succeed. There is a great article in the new issue of National Affairs right alongside arthurs article in the national refarms, there is a new one from andrew from Bowdoin College where he traces the history of these reforms through the Reagan Administration and beyond. The Reagan Administration by formulating sound reforms, by standing rind them rhetorically and investing Political Capital to see them succeed in the real world managed to entrench major success in Regulatory Reform, so much so that when president clinton was elected 12 years later and democrats assumed he would rule it back he didnt roll it back, he sustained it. Thats a great example of the bully pulpit in connection with the president s other constitutional powers succeeding in real reform and thats the ideal that i hope the Trump Administration pursues in the next three or seven years of his administration. The president ial twitter is obviously here to stay, there is not any future president that will be using this replacing the fireside chat and the television speech, its certainly here for good now. Time for one more. Thats a good argument for calvin coolidge, though. Time for one more question. In the back, sir. A few weeks ago bobby jindal the former governor of louisiana wrote in a wall street journal article that trump had saved the Republican Party by bringing back disaffected low and middle class Blue Collar Workers who traditionally had voted democratic. Jindal went on to say that having saved the Republican Party it was important for trump to leave, but put that aside for a second. Who else in the Republican Party out there could now attract that same group of people that he has brought into the Republican Party . Was there anybody on the stage with him during the last debates that could pick up that mantle, or do republicans have to look to a bench, you know, in the Minor Leagues or someplace else to try to find people who can continue to draw on that segment of the American Population . Well, in terms of policy there is no question question that senator tom cotton of arkansas would be the most likely heir. I dont know about not necessarily personality but certainly in policy, he would be the most likely person to carry on. Every policy he is involved with, whether its immigration, whether its a certain part of Foreign Policy and crime, for example, law and order, he has stood against the big effort on socalled criminal reform, promoted by many folks, including the koch foundation, he stood against that as has Jeff Sessions. Sessions was sort of a forerunner, i think, of the populous uprising with President Trumps victory and i think cotton may be the future here. I would say it looked for a while as though there might be a series of primary challenges in 2018 and there so might be in 2020 from, you know, the steve bannon right to try to move the party and especially the senate in a trumpist direction. I always thought that was a fantasy and now i think, you know, there is no more steve bannon circle in washington or really im not even sure there is in the party. Now i think it will come in a different way. People if trump is successful he will have imitators and the party will rather than in a series of ideological confrontations i think it more likely now that the process will be a sort of more peaceful and gradual one in which a new cohort of candidates will come forward and out of that cohort would be potential competitors to tom cotton for the future president ial nominations. Thank you all for coming. Join me in thankingel pan ethe panelists. Join us for a reception to follow. Tonight on cspans landmark cases, we will look at the Supreme Court case mccullough v. Maryland a case that solidified the federal governments ability to take actions not explicitly mentioned in the constitution and restricted state action against the legitimate use of this power. Explore this case and the high court seas ruling with university of virginia associate law professor farah keysen and mark killenbeck. Watch landmark cases live tonight at 9 00 eastern on cspan, cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. For background on each case order a copy of the landmark cases companion book. Its available at cspan. Org landmarkcases. For an additional resource there is a link on our website to the National Constitution centers interactive constitution. The committee for a responsible federal budget, a nonpartisan policy Analysis Group is hosting a series of discussions on the federal budget process. Participants including members of the Senate Budget committee, journalists and professors. This is live coverage on cspan 3. It should start in just a moment here. Again, we are live this afternoon for a discussion on the federal budget process. This is hosted by the committee for a responsible federal budget. We have just gotten word that it should start here in about 30 seconds or so this is live coverage on cspan 3