Transcription
This is Democracy Watch. Mark, we have some breaking news today, and Donald Trump has ended home rule in Washington D.C., sending in the National Guard. First and foremost, can you talk about the legality of this move?
Yeah, so look, the District of Columbia is just that. It's not a state. It's the District of Columbia. It is a federal city created by, uh, the Constitution and governed by Congress. Uh, and Congress can decide to give the power to run the city to the people of the District of Columbia. That is what is referred to as home rule. It's the reason why there is a mayor that is elected by the people of, of Washington D.C. But it also means that the federal government continues to have more power there. And one of the powers that it gives is some power to the president in extraordinary circumstances. And that is when this is supposed to be used to essentially take over for short periods of time, uh, the D.C. uh, police department, uh, also, uh, to deploy federal law enforcement and, as you mentioned, to also, uh, send in or or activate, uh, the D.C. National Guard. So this is not unexpected because Donald Trump has been threatening the District of Columbia going back years and years. But this is an ominous sign not just for the District of Columbia, where I work, uh, but where, but for, uh, frankly, every state and municipality around the country.
And, and that's what I want to dive into now, um, in terms of him kind of inuring Americans, normalizing Americans to this idea that the military can and will go into their cities and their states. Can you talk about the, the broader, um, risks here, especially given the fact that we are coming up on an election, and we've seen the ways in which Donald Trump has already tried to meddle in elections? Back in 2020, uh, he tried to get his DOJ to seize voting machines. Now, we had Bill Barr in at the time who wouldn't, you know, humor any of these bogus claims that Trump put forward. But Bill Barr is out, and he's been replaced by Pam Bondi, who's perfectly content to, to humor any of the, you know, insanity that Trump puts forward. Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, none of these people are going to push back. And so as far as the DOJ goes, as far as the suits are concerned, he's got, he's got carte blanche to do whatever he wants there. But then can you talk about the fact that he will also have boots on the ground, uh, in all of these cities with a military that is largely going to be compliant in terms of, uh, following whatever orders he hands down?
Yeah. So look, I want everyone to pay particularly close attention to this part. We've already seen Donald Trump send the military into a major U.S. city. It's Los Angeles, right? He said he, he brought in the National Guard. Then he sent in active duty military. And he did not do it because they were needed. He did not do it because they were requested by the governor or by the mayor. He did it because he wanted to manufacture a false narrative that the city of Los Angeles was out of control, that there were these tremendous threats to law and order as an excuse. And why did he want that excuse? He wanted that excuse for precisely the reason Brian, you just said. He wanted to start getting the American people accustomed to the idea that there would be U.S. military, National Guard, U.S., uh, and federal law enforcement, people in masks, right? Remember, at that point, we were not used to people seeing masked agents.
Yeah.
Masked agents throwing people into the back of vans. He wanted to get people used to that. Well, now here we are a few months later, and we are watching it happen on the East Coast in Washington D.C., and he's doing it for the same reason. He wants people to get used to the idea that there are FBI agents acting as police, that he has taken over local law enforcement. He's taken over the D.C., D.C. metropolitan police, and that he has deployed the National Guard. And I assume very, very soon he will announce he's deploying the U.S. military as well. These are dangerous times we live in. They are dangerous times when we are starting to see this happen in one city and now a second city where we're seeing it escalate from National Guard to military in Los Angeles, from National Guard to taking over local law enforcement and using FBI agents as local police in Washington D.C. But it's not going to end there. It's going to spread from city to city, then to the suburbs, then to more rural areas. Until Donald Trump feels like he has complete authority over all law enforcement in this country. The ones that stand up to him, he will threaten. The ones that bow down, he will reward. And all of this is in furtherance of his efforts to undermine democracy, undermine the rule of law, to, to squash and intimidate people who are willing to stand up and speak out, to intimidate and to have the large institutions, legacy media, the law firms, the, the universities, have them bow down and be intimidated. And then ultimately, Brian, as you said, free and fair elections are the cornerstone, the crown jewel of what he wants to undermine.
Mark, are there any limits in terms of his ability right now to be able to deploy the National Guard or the military into American cities? Are there time limits? Is he able, does he have to offer up some rationale? Do judges have to be able to validate that rationale? Like, what, what, what restrictions are put on him in terms of the deployment of these troops?
Look, this is one of the great, uh, questions of our time is what are the limits? What are the limits that civil society are going to put on them? What are the limits that large institutions are going to put on him? What are the limits that the courts are going to put on him? You know, at the time that you and I are recording this, there is literally just beginning a, a trial in California in the case that Gavin Newsom brought on this very question. Remember, there was a federal judge who briefly halted, uh, this effort when it happened as a result of a lawsuit brought by Gavin Newsom, and then that was, that was blocked by the Court of Appeals.
Yeah.
And the Court of Appeals accepted the flimsiest of the flimsiest of the flimsiest rationale to allow him to do this. So we're going to need everyone to step forward. We're going to need the courts to say, you know what, these pretextual ridiculous, um, explanations are not enough. We're going to need law firms to stand up and say, "We're going to bring litigation. We're going to fight you when you do this." We're going to need average citizens to be willing to stand up to protest this, to say it's not okay to call their representatives and go to town halls where Republicans are holding them and ask them about this. And then we're going to need the legacy media to do something that it has utterly failed to do, which is to present this as the threat to democracy it is. Not to say Donald Trump says this and the, and the local officials say that, which is exactly the framing that I'm watching right now about what's happening in Washington D.C.
Yeah.
You know, there's no crime epidemic in Washington. Crime's down.
That's not my opinion. That is a fact.
But the legacy media is failing their obligation to call this out for what it is. It is an authoritarian move by someone who is an authoritarian who wants to undermine democracy.
Mark, is Congress able to do anything if Democrats are able to win the House in 2026 to rein in Trump, especially as we head toward 2028? And, and, and I know a lot of what he's doing right now is to prevent a free and fair election in 2026. So, I understand that this is kind of like this is this is all a little bit convoluted and muddled because the efforts that he's taking right now are to prevent a free and fair election in the very election cycle that I'm talking about. So it may not be as easy as just saying like, "Oh yeah, if Democrats win in 2026," when Trump is taking all of these steps expressly to prevent Democrats from being able to win in '26. But, but humor me here just on this, on this thought experiment. If Democrats do win in 2026, what tools do they have at their disposal to be able to rein him in?
Sure. So look, if, if Congress, um, is controlled by Democrats, they could pass legislation, right? I mean, I mean, they could grant D.C. statehood. They could, they could strip the power of the president to do some of these things. Um, frankly, you know, we're going to have a budget coming up. You know, the, the budget is going to expire, and, and there's going to, we're once again going to be facing the question of a, of a government shutdown. There's going to be questions of, you know, whether or not, you know, what, what are the conditions for not shutting down the government, the Democrats insist.
Let me ask this question because I know that some of this legislation is going to require the signature of the president himself, and Trump is not going to sign into law statehood for D.C. He's not going to sign into law a budget the Democrats passed that strips ICE of its funding, for example. And so we're more likely to see a government shutdown than his signature ever, uh, to land on that bill. And so, is there anything that Congress could do unilaterally, or that the House could do unilaterally to offer something of a barrier or an impediment to his unchecked power?
They could subpoena the, the White House. They could subpoena, uh, the, the various agencies that are executing this, uh, to at least hold oversight hearings, to, to shine a spotlight on it. I mean, that, you know, this is an administration that doesn't like the spotlight on, on their, on their activities. They have, they have systematically undermined transparency laws. Look, Donald Trump is, you're still holding on to the Epstein files, right? We were promised those. Where are those? Right, Pam Bondi? Didn't you say they were sitting on your desk? So, so this is an administration that has stripped transparency from, uh, from its, uh, from, from the American people, and it's something Congress could certainly, uh, insist on in this issue, as well as the others.
Can you speak about the fact that we've been told for years and years and years that the only way to deploy the National Guard was if Nancy Pelosi somehow does it? That she was responsible for withholding the National Guard on January 6, 2021. And so can you explain to me how Trump would be able to do this, to, to effectuate this action without the sign-off from Nancy Pelosi here, if she's this all-powerful being?
Right? That was always a lie. I mean, Donald Trump didn't deploy the National Guard or otherwise, uh, uh, use the assets, the federal assets available to him on January 6, 2021, because he agreed with what the insurrectionists were doing. Okay? He sent them to the Capitol. He sat in the Oval Office and snickered and jeered and cheered on as they were threatening his Vice President, as they were threatening, uh, Republican, uh, senators and members of Congress who on that day were singing a whole different tune than they are now. Right? Back then, they were pissing in their pants, so scared they wanted help from Donald Trump. Now, of course, they're all, they're all standing by him around this. But, but he had the authority on January 6 to, to show force and to defend democracy, to defend the rule of law, defend those people who are in the, in the Capitol, to prevent deaths from taking place, and of course, to ensure that there's a peaceful transfer of power. And he didn't do it. And then he came up with a bunch of lies, like he always does. One of which was that somehow Nancy Pelosi was at fault. This was always about Donald Trump, and, and we should never forget that day and what Donald Trump did.
Can you speak a little bit about the legality of the military being able to follow orders that may be illegal? And so if Donald Trump tries to deploy the military into American cities with the ultimate goal, as we've been discussing before, of trying to be able to interfere in the 2026 or 2028 election, I mean, what can the military do? Uh, at, at what point is it appropriate to refuse to obey illegal orders? What constitutes an illegal order? If, if the, you know, if, if Trump is able to, to offer up some edict and he's the commander-in-chief, I mean, can you just discuss a little bit of this?
Sure. Members of the military take an oath to uphold the Constitution. They don't take an oath to an individual. They don't take an oath to the president. They don't even take the oath to the commander-in-chief. They take an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. And that is their obligation. And so, yes, the President of the United States is the commander-in-chief of the military. That is assuming that we are at war. That is assuming that they are deployed, deployed lawfully in combat, uh, uh, uh, uh, zones. That assumes that if they're in the United States, God forbid, they are repelling a foreign enemy. It does not mean that the military is there to be Donald Trump's, uh, uh, uh, uh, personal guard. They are not there to turn their rifles against U.S. citizens or to intimidate people from being able to vote. They are not there, as you say, they may not, they may, they are not, uh, permitted under law, uh, to violate, to violate the Constitution. They cannot follow an illegal order. So if Donald Trump asks them to do something that violates their oath of, of duty, that violates the Constitution, that violates the law, their obligation is to uphold the Constitution, not to follow that illegal order. We saw that
when Donald Trump reportedly wanted to shoot protesters. Remember that reporting, uh, uh, back, uh, from, uh, from his first term?
Yeah.
And, uh, the military officials involved said, "No, sir. We don't do that."
So the final question here to follow up on exactly that is who's there to enforce that rule if the military does decide to listen to Donald Trump and carry out illegal, illegal orders that were handed down by him? You know, if, if the DOJ is not going to do anything about it, if the White House isn't going to do anything about it, and if the military itself in question is following the illegal orders handed down by Trump, who steps up? Who fills that, that leadership void?
Look, you, you've put your finger on exactly the problem, which is our system was not built for someone like Donald Trump. It did, it did not assume that you would have an authoritarian would become the President of the United States. It did not assume that even in the worst possible circumstances that you would have someone so willing to disregard the law, so willing to trample on the Constitution that he does it publicly, he does it proudly, he does it boldly, he brags about it. It was not built for someone like this. So the problem is exactly as you said, you know, what does it mean to say that Donald Trump is going to, is breaking the law when he has immunity? What does it mean to say that his supporters will be held accountable when Pam Bondi is the Attorney General and all she's doing is investigating Democrats for, for nonsense, but is turning a blind eye to anything that Donald Trump allies do? What does it mean to say that there has to be fealty to the oath of office when Donald Trump can fire and has fired military officers who he doesn't like and has promoted others who he does? So that is the great challenge of this generation. It is the great challenge of our time, Brian. And it's one of the reasons why you and I keep doing these videos.
Yeah.
Because the answer is it ultimately relies on us, the American people. It relies on us as voters to have there come a day, hopefully in 2026 with the midterms, in 2028 with the presidential election, where there will be a change of power, where, notwithstanding all of Donald Trump's, uh, worst instincts and best efforts, we will be able to have elections that turn him and Republicans out of power. And with that may come a measure of justice. It will never restore us to where we were before him. It will never hold him accountable, but we need to hopefully at that point be able to restore some measure of justice to the system so that we can have a democracy moving forward.
Look, I, my message to everybody watching right now is that, is that Mark's voice is important here for two reasons. One, the moral clarity is clear. For, for, for you, Mark, to be able to make these arguments as, as clearly, concisely, and forcefully as you have is especially important. But beyond that, you are actually taking the fight to these people where it matters on the front lines in the courts. And that is just as important, um, to know that we have somebody who, who has that moral clarity, but also is not afraid to get his hands dirty. And so, highly recommend for everybody who's watching right now to elevate voices like Mark's, which is again, especially important in moments like this. Uh, please subscribe to his YouTube channel, Democracy Docket. Make sure that his voice reaches as many people as humanly possible. It's never been more important as it is right now. Now. So, I'm going to put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen.
I'm Mark Elias.
This is Democracy Watch.
[Music]