Luke Broadwater
Appearances
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
Yeah. Two of the, uh, I guess we could call them characters in the book, were Steve Bannon and Russell Vogt, who now are wielding even more influence in the Trump administration. And we document in this book how they were able to sort of dictate how things were happening on Capitol Hill through their allies in the House Republicans and also through their influence, especially on Bannon's podcast.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
He was able to text directly with members and acted in some cases like a stage parent, sort of coaching them on how to approach certain situations to get the most MAGA outcome.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
I mean, it looks to me like they are embracing Elon Musk and his mission very much so. Each chamber has set up its own doge caucus, and they are trying to implement his cuts into their various spending plans. When he comes to Capitol Hill— He gave out his private cell phone number to members. He has tried to court people individually. And he's posing for pictures.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
But Elon Musk, his polling is much lower than Donald Trump's. The public at large does not feel the same way they feel about Trump as they do with Elon Musk. And Democrats, I believe, are focusing in on him as perhaps their best target. He wasn't elected. He's extremely rich. They know that there's a lot of populist anger against the wealthy.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
And so if the richest man in the world who has all these contracts with the federal government is coming in slashing the jobs of, you know, regular workers, and there are, you know, federal workers not just in D.C. but all over the country, you know, you can see how that could be a potent political weapon for Democrats to wield. Yeah.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
I think that that is one of the very salient points that you've made. As Elon Musk and Doge are cutting small agencies and saving pennies on the dollar, the House Republicans are planning to extend these tax cuts and they're planning to raise the debt by $4 trillion.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
And so there's a bit of discordant notes within the Republican Party about how much they actually care about the debt because the bigger actions they're taking are going to increase the debt. And one could see dismantling the Department of Education and dismantling USAID and
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
and laying off probationary workers as, you know, very, very small dollar figures compared to the amount of debt that they are going to be increasing. And so, you know, I don't know how Republican voters process that. It seems that many care about the debt when it's under a Democrat but don't care when it's under a Republican. But this Congress is planning to raise the debt significantly.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
And in the book, we take you inside the room for a private one-on-one meeting between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mike Johnson as she's trying to kick him out as speaker and he's trying to fund Ukraine. And the showdown between these two is pretty incredible. So I would encourage people when they get the book to read that chapter.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
It's kind of gross, but they get paid $177,000, which I think to most people sounds like a lot of money. But D.C., it's extremely expensive to live in D.C., and then you have a family back home and probably a house or a mortgage or at least an apartment back home. And so you have two residences, and it becomes kind of untenable for them to deal on one salary unless you're independently wealthy.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
Which a lot of them are. Yeah, a lot of the members of Congress and a lot of the senators are extremely wealthy. But if you're somebody like AOC or somebody else who comes from smaller means, it does become quite difficult.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
I mean, in some ways, this was the real moment when the Democrats in the House embraced the Republican style of politics. Mm-hmm. During this Congress, the first Congress controlled by the MAGA movement, pretty much every Republican who got themselves on TV did so by emulating the style of Donald Trump.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
And Democrats had always believed in Michelle Obama's axiom, which was when they go low, we go higher. And Jasmine Crockett clearly decided when they go low, we go lower and we're going to we're going to fight them down in the mud. And, you know, it sort of typified and exemplified everything that this Congress became. And that is dysfunctional ceding power to Trump.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
really just fighting to fight to make viral moments.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
Yeah. So I don't believe it has worked according to the election results. It seems that voters actually like the fisticuffs. They like Donald Trump's brand of politics. Certainly in these red districts, they like it. And this is a successful way to win primaries on the right is to be the loudest, the biggest fighter, the most extreme, that gives you a loyal, loving fan base on the right.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
And so, you know, what we're seeing now in the Democratic Party is I think there's a desire among the populace for the Democrats to become more of the party of fighting and not the party that plays by, you know, Robert's rules and keeps things super professional.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
Not like this. I mean, you're right. That was a striking revelation as well. We would often go back to people and ask them what happened in this room or that room, and Time after time, they would recount how somebody said something to them and they would say, you know, if you do that again, I'll knock you out or some other sort of threat.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
And some of these were examples that played out on the House floor, you know. Eric Swalwell and Kevin McCarthy coming up to each other and using the P word. Right. You had Tim Burchett and Kevin McCarthy in the hallway.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
Yeah. Oftentimes it's members of the same caucus even getting into it with each other. Obviously, we talked about Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene and why they hate each other so much. One thing that I learned in that scene with Jasmine Crockett in the oversight room is going back and reporting it later is that Lauren Boebert is actually the preferred Republican of the Democrats.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
They see her as much easier to work with and actually she has friendships on the left. When her grandchild was born, Jamie Raskin of all people sent her a baby gift that said, I may take a lot of naps, but I'm still woke.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
Trevor Burrus, Jr. : And people feel that Schumer is out of step with the moment. You know, he sat for us for the book and he told us, these are his words, that once the Republican Party removes the turd of Donald Trump, it will go back to being the old Republican Party. And he described Donald Trump as being sort of an evil sorcerer in his words.
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
that had sort of cast a spell over Republicans and Republican voters. And what we really discovered reporting this book out is that every member of the House Republicans that we talked to had embraced the MAGA movement and made it their own. It was not solely the function of Donald Trump anymore. And they had taken it in some way
Fresh Air
Inside The 'Mad House' Of Congressional Disfunction
some instances even further to the right than where Donald Trump is with MAGA. And so, you know, our belief is, having done all these interviews, that MAGA will exist long after Donald Trump leaves the political scene.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Yeah, I mean, that's one way to read it, certainly. Meanwhile, there's a bit of dual messaging going on. You know, while in court, the administration is saying they complied with the judge's order, outside of court, different members of the administration are sending an entirely different message.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Tom Homan, who's known as Donald Trump's border czar, goes on Fox News.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And he says, I don't care what the judge has to say. And then Donald Trump himself begins to rail against this judge.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Absolutely. Now, politically, there is an advantage here to the Trump administration. Explain that. You have a president who has sworn to get tough on the border and get tough on crime, expelling from the United States, by his description, hundreds of criminal gang members. And so that's an easy narrative to understand. You know, who in the world...
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
wouldn't want a bunch of criminal gang members kicked out of the country? And what kind of crazy liberal judge would order those gang members back into America? And if you watch conservative media, that's the argument they're putting out. You know, this judge wants these gang members roaming around the streets, attacking your family and loved ones.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Obviously, this is terrain the Trump administration chose carefully to fight on, and they believe in the court of public opinion most people will be on their side of this issue.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
That's the challenge for the opponents of what Donald Trump is doing. But you know who is paying very close attention to this case? The chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts. And he, on Tuesday— takes a very rare step, and that is he issues a rare public statement pushing back against the attacks on this judge.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And it says, for more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to a disagreement concerning a judicial decision. So he is very much sticking up for this judge, James Boasberg. And he is saying, essentially, Call off your dogs, Mr. President. It's not your place to attack our judges.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
You should abide by the court rulings and not start open warfare against a member of the judiciary.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Oh, no, absolutely not. It's up to Congress to impeach and convict and remove anyone in the federal government, including judges.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And it's really reached a fever pitch here in Washington. And it all concerns the deportation of about 200 migrants from Venezuela to El Salvador.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
But what Chief Justice John Roberts is doing here is he is using his stature and his standing as an institutionalist to try to get people away from these political impeachments and revenge against enemies and bring the country back to respect for the rule of law, respect for the courts, and respect for the judiciary, back to its founding principles.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Well, Donald Trump and his administration have attempted time and time again to expand the powers of the executive branch. And so whether it's this case or some other one, there will be another day when Donald Trump's administration is before the Supreme Court attempting to win a court case about its own power.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And I think at that point in time, he's going to have to care a lot about what John Roberts thinks.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Sure. Well, if the judge decides that, then he could issue penalties against the administration. He could order them to try to undo some of the things they've done. You could even see a scenario where he tried to order them to bring back the migrants from El Salvador and see how they would respond to those statements. But I think the bigger...
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
picture you're getting at here is this may have been one of the biggest examples of the trump administration defying a judge's order and yes they sort of did it with legalistic language and they came with arguments to ignore the order to turn the planes around but they did it anyway and
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And what happens if they eventually stop coming up with the legalistic arguments and they just start defying judges' orders and they keep doing it? And by the way, this is not the only case where a judge is telling the Trump administration they have to halt or stop or change anything. some of the very rapid overhauls they are making of the federal government.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
By my count, there's at least 15 orders from federal judges that have blocked major actions by the Trump administration. Those orders span all sorts of actions, freezing foreign aid, declaring birthright citizenship illegal. So there's no shortage of dramatic actions the Trump administration has
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
But at many steps, the only people that have been stepping up and successful at all in stopping some of these things have been federal judges.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Well, that's the constitutional crisis that all these legal scholars keep talking about. The courts themselves don't have a military. They don't have a police force. They are reliant on the executive branch to enforce their orders. The Justice Department reports to Donald Trump and the president under Trump.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Well, for a long time, the Trump administration has wanted to deport people from the country faster and more aggressively than what was happening under the Biden administration. And the Trump administration has succeeded in doing that to a large extent. But it's not been fast enough for what President Trump and his top allies want to see. So they have been...
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
his new leadership team has taken multiple steps to remove the Justice Department's independence and to make sure that it would be his Justice Department and not an independent wing of government. And so what happens if a court orders the Justice Department to carry out some sort of order or discipline against the executive branch, and they decide not to follow it.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Well, now the courts don't have any enforcement power, and that is the constitutional crisis.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Right. Under past administrations, you wouldn't think twice about that. You would think, of course, they would. But if there's a pattern developing where judges' orders are ignored, well, now that becomes a real open question.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Yeah, I mean, in the current political environment, there is essentially no chance of the Republican House and Senate impeaching and convicting Donald Trump.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
That might have been possible under earlier iterations of the American government. You know, it certainly was possible a few decades ago when Congress was about to impeach Richard Nixon. Right. But Donald Trump has completely co-opted the Republicans in Congress. There is no independence there anymore. There is no appetite to stand up to him on any measure.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And so if you are looking for a check on President Trump, it will not come from Congress. And the last place it can come from is the federal courts. And so that's why so many people are watching this case and and trying to figure out what exactly will happen if the Trump administration, in fact, defies a court order.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Well, the American system of government, our democracy, is set up to have three co-equal branches. And if two of the branches have become subservient to the executive branch, well, then I do think you really need to question whether we are, in fact, the kind of democracy, the kind of government that our founders intended.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Sort of combing through old laws, old statutes to try to figure out how they can get more people out of the country as quickly as possible without so many judges and reviews and hearings standing in their way. And so. On Friday, the president takes an extraordinary step.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
He signs an executive order in which he invokes wartime powers from the 1700s called the Alien Enemies Act, which is really supposed to apply to a time of war. Mm-hmm. He claims the United States is being invaded and the order targets a criminal gang from Venezuela.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And using this authority, he argues he is able to bypass the normal system of judicial review and deport hundreds of migrants to holding cells in El Salvador.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
That's absolutely right. What's happened here is the United States has struck a deal with the government of El Salvador to ship migrants that the United States doesn't want in the country to El Salvador to jail cells there. That is an extraordinary step. And then on top of that, it isn't announced. the border is kept under wraps.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And so the Trump administration can begin setting the wheels in motion to start these deportations without people really knowing about it. Now, this is where things get interesting. The ACLU caught wind that the administration was planning to do this executive order. And they file a preemptive lawsuit to try to block it.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
They are able to file it on behalf of five migrants who would be subject to deportation. And that sets in motion what's essentially a weekend-long sprint between the administration and the ACLU, with both sides trying to race to either deport these people or block the deportations.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Well, they're arguing, one, that the president cannot invoke these wartime powers because the country is not at war with Venezuela. Right. But more fundamentally, it's that Everybody in America is supposed to get due process.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
That we don't actually know whether or not these men who are being held in these detention facilities are the hardened criminals the Trump administration says they are if they haven't had a hearing before a judge. We have lawyers and family members of some of these people who say they are not gang members.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And so how can the administration be sure, how can the American public be sure that the allegations against them are in fact true? So without a hearing, without due process, that – becomes a fundamental violation of really core American principles.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And so that's the larger issue at stake here is, will the judge allow these expedited deportations to take place under the guise that this is an act of war, or will he enforce the existing immigration laws?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
So as I said, it's a bit of a rush. The judge, James Boasberg, on Saturday night after the lawsuit is filed, sets up a hearing for the afternoon. Before that hearing can take place, the Trump administration quickly starts to deport Boasberg. people from jail cells in Texas.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
They line up vans, they take people to the airport, they start putting people on planes headed first for Honduras and then ultimately for El Salvador. And As the hearing gets underway, it's very clear right away that the judge has big concerns about what the administration is doing and starts to side with the ACLU. He starts to agree that there should be a halt on these decisions. deportations.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And at one point, he specifically orders the lawyers for the government to tell their clients who are the Trump administration and ICE to turn the planes around and get them back onto American soil so that these people can have a fair hearing. And the judge says that the government has to comply with this order immediately.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Well, the planes do not turn around. And we know this because the next morning, the president of El Salvador celebrates the arrival of these deportation flights into his country and sort of mocks the judge's order. He posts a link to an article about the planes being ordered to turn around and writes, oopsie, too late, with a laugh-crying emoji. And then...
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
posts sort of dramatic video shot in this very cinematic style in which there's this tremendous show of force where you have men with guns and military fatigues taking these detainees off the American planes and into prisons in El Salvador and their frog marching them down the steps.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
And it all looks very tough on crime and clearly meant to send a message that this is a major operation, that this president is aggressive and tough on criminals. And it's even retweeted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And so it all feels like Rubio and the president of El Salvador are basically saying, we saw the judge's order, but we're not going to follow it. So this all feels intentional.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
But there's still an open question as to whether the United States government specifically defied the judge's order. And that is the question the judge has on his mind when he summons the Trump administration back into court on Monday to answer the question of whether they knowingly and intentionally disobeyed a court order.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
So this is a major hearing, and all of Washington is awaiting what the Trump administration will say. It seems pretty clear that the administration did not listen to the judge's order when he told them to turn around mid-flight because those flights we now know have landed in El Salvador. Mm-hmm. And so a lot of us were wondering, will the Trump administration apologize?
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Will they say we got it wrong? We misunderstood. Will they openly defy the judge and say you have no power over us? And what actually happens is the Trump administration attempts to argue that they technically did comply with the judge's order.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
So yes, the judge told them to turn the planes around mid-flight, but they come up with the argument that he said that from the bench, that that was a verbal order. And 40 minutes later, he put out a very brief written order that didn't say turn the planes around. It just sided with the ACLU. And so they technically didn't disobey the written order, The planes were already in the air.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
They were over international waters, they argue. And so maybe it wasn't a violation of the judge's order. These are the arguments the Trump administration puts forth.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Almost every legal expert I talked to said the same thing. And in fact, the judge also wasn't really buying it. He, from the bench, called it a heck of a stretch.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Right. The Trump administration is arguing that I guess the judge's jurisdiction doesn't extend beyond American soil. And so once the planes got out of American airspace, that they were no longer subject to the order. Again, every legal expert I talked to says that the judge's orders apply to the American government and the government has to follow them. And so I
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
If he ordered the plane to turn around, they should have immediately gotten that message to the personnel on the plane and turned those planes around. But this is the argument the Trump administration is making. And the judge has not yet ruled on that, whether or not they're correct or incorrect. So, you know, despite what legal experts are saying, it still is an open matter before this judge.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Well, we spent a lot of time researching this, looking at flight logs and determining exactly when these planes took off from Texas, where they went, when they landed there. And we can say pretty definitively that two of the planes were in fact in the air before both the verbal order and the written order began.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
But there's a third plane, and that plane does not leave Texas, does not leave the ground of America until after the judge's written order is posted online.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
Well, at first glance, it seems like that. But the Trump administration argues this third plane is not subject to the judge's order. And they say that they specifically put migrants on that plane who they were deporting for reasons that were not solely related to to these wartime powers that were invoked by President Trump.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
They're saying that those migrants on the third plane did in fact have due process. And so, yes, they left after the judge's order, but ICE went through, determined that they could still be deported even with the judge's order halting the flights. So they're arguing that this third flight technically is not covered by the judge's order and therefore did not violate it.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
You're right. There's been a lot of concern since the start of the Trump administration about what would happen when or if the president began to disregard judicial rulings. And I would say this weekend was the starkest example to date of the president pushing the boundaries against the federal judiciary. And we saw the executive branch battling it out in court with the judiciary.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
So the judge is frustrated that there isn't more information provided, and he demands the government present a sworn statement attesting that they, in fact, didn't put anyone on this third plane who was being deported under Donald Trump's new order. And the government does, on Tuesday—
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
issue a sworn statement attesting that they didn't violate the order with this third plane but they do not go along with the other part of the judge's order which is the judge wanted a lot more details about who these people were on the plane under what authorities they are being removed and The judge even offered to say, well, we can do it in closed hearing.
The Daily
Trump’s Showdown With the Courts
We can go to a secure place if you have security concerns. And in the government's filing on Tuesday, they essentially told him to pound sand, that they didn't have to give him any more information. And they argue that essentially he's going to have to take their word for it that they did everything legally.