Dave Smith

Donald Trump, though, seems to be— For very different reasons, though, Rob.

Yes.

So the War Powers Act is debatably unconstitutional.

In fact, Murray Rothbard wrote a lot about this when it was first passed, I believe, in the 70s.

And yeah, because essentially, right, the Constitution is very clear that you need a declaration from Congress.

Only Congress can declare war.

And so now the president does have authority to thwart an invasion, to deal with an imminent attack without authorization from Congress.

But that's it.

And so the idea that it was ever constitutional to say you can just launch wars of aggression and wars of choice like that the president has the authority to do that, it clearly is not granted that authority in the Constitution.

But what they're trying to claim here

is that the War Powers Act itself is unconstitutional.

Now, look, they're saying it's unconstitutional because the president has the right to do this, and he's pointing out that it's consensus amongst all the presidents that they have the right to start wars without a declaration from Congress.

And, like, that is true, but that doesn't matter.

It's just an indictment of all of the presidents.

Now, for Marco Rubio to sit here and say that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional...

Okay, well, even if you feel that way, here's the thing.

The goddamn executive branch doesn't get to determine that.

If Congress writes a law and it's unconstitutional, if your beef is with unconstitutionality, well, then that is the Supreme Court's job to overturn that and to say that that's overstepped.

There's the president simply does not have the right to say that a law that's been passed and signed into law by a president just isn't the law anymore.

I mean, we'll still do it because it's kind of nice and we want to have a good relationship with Congress.