Transcription
This is Democracy Watch. Mark, as I'm sure you've seen, there's a viral clip of Steve Bannon that's that's going across the internet where he discusses, uh, the prospect of Donald Trump being president for a third term. For those who haven't seen it yet, I'm going to throw that clip right now.
>> Well, he's going to get a third term. So, Trump 28, Trump is going to be president 28. And people just ought to get accommodated with that.
>> So, what about the 22nd amendment?
>> There's many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we'll lay out what the plan is, but there's a plan, and President Trump will be the president in 28. We had longer odds in 16 and longer odds in 24 than we got in 28. And President Trump will be the president of the United States. And the country needs him to be president of the United States. We have to finish what we started. And the way we we finish it through Trump is a vehicle. I know this will drive you guys crazy, but he's a vehicle of divine providence. He's an instrument. He's very imperfect. He's not churchy, not particularly religious, but he's an instrument of divine will. And you could tell this of how we've how he's pulled this off. We need him for at least one more term.
>> So Mark, that's Steve Bannon saying Trump will be president in 2028 and get a third term. And he seems pretty certain of that. So first and foremost, your response to this, uh, assertion that Trump is going to be president for a third term.
>> So I have no doubt that Steve Bannon believes this. I have no doubt that Donald Trump believes this. And it's about time that everyone wake up and realize that this is what we're up against. This is what the authoritarians are doing in the White House, as they literally bulldoze, uh, the East Wing. This is what the authoritarians are up to as they literally are disappearing people off the city streets, as they are deploying the military now, as they are most recently, uh, announced they're going to deploy, uh, Department of Justice, uh, uh, quote unquote observers in California and New Jersey. So, my reaction is obviously this is unconstitutional, but that's not the point. The point is this is what we are up against and it is important that we all steel ourselves for the battles ahead.
>> So I guess it's worth digging into now because they believe that they have some way of subverting the constitution, the 22nd amendment to the constitution to give themselves cover to be able to do what I think most of us, uh, view as egregiously unconstitutional. Is there any way around the 22nd amendment to the constitution?
>> I don't know, Brian. Let's just hypothesize. The US military. Uh, maybe inciting a riot and sending your supporters to ransack the nation's capital. Uh, maybe using bulldozers to bulldoze over, uh, parts of, uh, the White House. Uh, maybe telling, uh, you know, uh, uh, your top generals to shoot protesters while holding a Bible upside down, right? I mean, like they haven't found some constitutional way to do this. They're not even looking for a constitutional way to do this. They are going to dress up what is a fundamentally dictatorial act. What is an obviously unconstitutional act. They are going to dress it up in some sort of populist rhetoric in some sort of obfuscated message and they are going to marry that message, that that that obfuscation with force and that force may take the form of official use of force. It may take the form of paramilitary force. It may take the form of of vigilante force. And it may only be the threat of that that is necessary. But but we've seen this playbook before, Brian. You know, January 6, 2021 was a use of force to try to hold power. And you know, I hope everyone has learned their lesson from that. I I think you're absolutely right in that we we only hurt ourselves by assuming that the Trump administration is or has ever acted in good faith or in accordance with the law. Like us consistently and constantly deferring back to like, well, what does the Constitution say? As if that's going to be some self-executing barrier against Trump's overreach is it like we need to disabuse ourselves of this notion that the Trump administration is in any way looking at the Constitution because they haven't. I mean, if you look at, for example, uh, one of the most recent stories was Trump's, uh, desire to take $230 million from DOJ, basically to to pluck it out of the US Treasury because he views himself as being harmed by rightful prosecutions at the hands of the DOJ during the Biden administration for when he tried to, uh, subvert the 2020 election, steal classified documents. Um, and so now he's decided that he's entitled to $230 million. That is in direct violation of the emoluments clause. The emoluments clause says that you can't get a dollar over your compensation for being president. Um, far from a dollar over being president. He's looking to take $230 million. That that is in in blatant direct violation of the emoluments clause. But but but it's happening. And so like the the problem for us is is thinking that okay, don't worry. The Constitution is just there as some as some like self-executing barrier and where it's metaphysically impossible for him to to to do anything in opposition in defiance of the Constitution when the reality is that the Constitution is only as strong as everyone's collective willingness to uphold it. And when we have Republicans who have shown that they're not willing to uphold it because they would rather be blindly deferential to Trump, then it goes to show that the Constitution isn't some major bulwark against Trump's overreach. And in fact, Trump will continue to do that overreach while Democrats continue to say, "Oh, don't worry. The Constitution's got us. We're going to be good in the end."
>> Yeah, you're absolutely right. The reason why I answered it the way I did, which is about brute force, rather than in a more lawyerly way. I mean, after all, I'm a lawyer. I'm a constitutional lawyer. Uh, I'm an election and a voting lawyer, right? So, you might think I'd start there, but the reason I don't is because that isn't the game that Donald Trump is playing, right? Right. Donald Trump is not playing the how do I fill out a permit to be able to make changes to the East Wing of the White House, right? He's like playing the game of I will have a bulldozer. He is not playing the game of how do I, you know, dress up this illegal payment from the Department of Justice to just put his money in his pocket. How do I dress it up? He's not trying to dress it up. He's just saying I control and therefore I will take the money. Right. And we see this over and over again in which we immediately revert back to the law. Which again, I am a lawyer so I too revert back to the law. But as you say, the Constitution is only as strong as the institutions, Congress, the states, uh, the courts are willing to enforce them. And one of the reasons why we need to make sure that we have Democrats in control of the House and Senate, um, in 2026 and then, uh, in 2028 is because ultimately it's Congress that certifies elections, right, for president. And the difference between having Republicans and Democrats. The difference between the Republicans saying we don't care about the Constitution or Democrats are. Now, look, there will be a lot of legal challenges to him being on the ballot, right? Him being able to even be on the ballot if he's in violation of the Constitution. But let's be clear, when that was tried before, uh, with the under the 14th Amendment and the insurrection clause, the Supreme Court basically stripped the states of the power to to interpret the Constitution as a barrier to entry, uh, to be on the ballot. And so you can see, you already see the gamesmanship that's going to go on there. And it doesn't mean that we're not going to fight fight it. It doesn't mean that we may not even win in court. But if you ask me what Steve Bannon thinks, Steve Bannon thinks that he will be able to just blow through and through through simply ignoring and bulldozing and popular threat and uprising and insurrection that he'll be able to get there. And we just need to not over-intellectualize what the other side is up to.
So to that end, I I guess the next question is for for folks who see the way in which Republicans are comporting themselves and and how they've kind of ripped up the rule book and just decide if we want to go for a third term, then the only barrier to us going for a third term is our own unwillingness to just bulldoze through. What would you say to those folks? How do you retain some degree of hope in in the face of an opposition that doesn't feel constrained by the law or the constitution or any rules whatsoever? And I'm going to have you answer that in a in in just a second, but I would I would ask for everybody who's watching right now, uh, to support the work that Mark is doing. And he's doing this work on the front lines in the courts where it matters most. He's litigating not just the post-election, uh, uh, litigation after 2020, but right now in the courts fighting, fighting against Republican overreach, whether it's in against these Texas, uh, maps or whatever it may be. He'll also be arguing in front of the Supreme Court in just a few weeks from now. Uh, the best way to support him is to sign up for Democracy Docket, which I'm going to put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. Uh, so if you're not yet signed up, please, uh, do Mark and his team a favor and sign up.
>> You know, and and and you've done some of the most hard-nosed, tough-minded interviews of Democratic governors. So, I hope everyone goes back and watches those. And and look, in particular, I noticed that in the last few days, uh, one of the candidates for governor in Colorado, the attorney general, came out in favor of finding a way to redistrict in Colorado. And and I believe Brian that is because of your interview of of Jared Polis, the current governor. I mean, you interviewed him and made it abundantly clear, as I have said before, that Colorado needs to be part of the solution. And I don't want to mischaracterize the interview or the governor, but I think the governor basically fought you on it and said no, he wasn't going to. And you didn't give up. You you kept pushing on this. And I think we are seeing the fruits of that in that we now have one of the major candidates for governor in Colorado saying he's going to take a different position. And so that's an example everyone of where Brian's journalism, Brian's interviewing of a Democrat in that instance, I think may wind up yielding additional Democratic seats if you know, because the dialogue and the the the incentive structure for these candidates change. So Brian, I want to thank you for that interview in particular.
>> I appreciate that.
>> Okay, so look, we can't give up hope because Donald Trump wants us to give up hope. Part of Steve Bannon's plan is for us to believe that Donald Trump can get away with anything and we can't stop him. And so we always need to have hope. We always need to have, uh, optimism. But that stems from courage and it stems from us being willing to steel ourselves and to be willing to fight as hard as the other side is using the tools that we have available. And some of those are going to court and bringing court cases. Some of those are what Democratic governors and what Democratic attorneys general are willing to do. Some of those are what ordinary citizens are willing to do in turning out in mass like we saw them do at the No Kings rally. Right? There's going to be a role for all of us in that. But a big part of it and this ties to frankly probably the topic that you and I discuss more both in this series right now and also just when you and I catch up with one another, which is redistricting. Right. What redistricting? What's going on in redistricting is essentially a microcosm of this, which is that Donald Trump just said, "I don't care what the norms are. I don't care what the usual is. I'm going to force Republican states to adopt maps in the case of Texas that the legislators hadn't even seen." They had been drawn by a map drawer in Washington DC, approved by the White House, and sent to the state of Texas. And that is replicating itself now in Missouri and in North Carolina. They've already moved forward. My law firm and I were suing those states, but we're going to see that roll forward in other states. And you know, there are states where we're watching Democratic governors and Democratic elected officials say, you know what, we're not going to focus on the obstacles for us. We're going to focus on the solutions to that. Right? So Gavin Newsom looked out and said, I have this nonpartisan redistricting commission. And he could have just said, there is therefore nothing I can do. Instead, he too grabbed a bulldozer and a key and turned it and said, you know what? I will find a way through sheer political will and and that has now turned into a grassroots movement that is going to in my opinion pass. I hope everyone in California makes sure to vote, uh, on November 4th for Prop, uh, 50. But that's the kind of of action that we need to be seeing Democrats take throughout the country around redistricting. Uh, you have been a leader on that. Your interviews have been unbelievably, uh, tough-minded and single-minded with Democratic governors. You have not yielded an inch. You know, anyone who wants to know what independent journalism is, watch his videos interviewing Democratic governors. You know, he is as hard on them on this question of of redistricting or as tough-minded about this question of redistricting as anyone. So, make sure you are subscribed to this channel, uh, and watch those videos in particular. But Brian, that's the mindset and the attitude we're going to need to have on everything going forward.
>> And I should note for folks who are watching right now, we're also going to be discussing a major move that's happening in Virginia, a surprise move that's happening in Virginia on the map front. So, if you're not yet subscribed to this channel, uh, that's going to be our next Democracy Watch video. So, go ahead and hit the subscribe button. And of course, as I mentioned before, a small step that we can all take to support the invaluable work that Mark is doing, not just in the media front, but in the courts, again, on the front lines. You can please sign up for a Democracy Docket. That's the news outlet Mark founded to focus on everything voting elections. So that link is right here on the screen and also in the post description as well. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen.
>> I'm Mark Elias.
>> This is Democracy Watch.