Lynn Thoman
speaker
1,507 appearances
28 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2026
last heard 6d ago
Lynn Thoman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 28 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 4.
Appearances
Today a president can order military action almost instantly.
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How did that one change completely reshape the balance of power that the founders imagined?
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Can you talk about the founders and what they wrote in the constitution to constrain the president in terms of going to war?
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But the power of it has changed because when the founders wrote the constitution, there was no standing army and it would take the president weeks or months to get that army together so there could be a declaration of war first before any action.
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And instantaneous the president can now almost instantaneously go to war or strike another country.
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Mm.
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One thing that really surprised me is that presidents from both parties often end up wanting more executive power than they thought they would before taking office.
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Why does the job itself change the way that people think?
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It makes sense.
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It sounds like the office changes the person just as much as the person changes the office of the presidency.
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So both President Bush's George H.
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W.
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Bush and George W.
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Bush went to Congress before major military actions in the Middle East.
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If a president believes he already has the legal authority, why bother?
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Why does asking Congress still matter?
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And that's particularly important when things do not go as planned to have that support.
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We often talk about the constitution, laws and institutions, but you're talking about how much ultimately depends on the judgment and character of the president.
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You've spent years in rooms that most of us will never see.
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Is there a moment from your time in government that you haven't discussed much publicly, but that changed how you think about leadership?
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Showing 161–180 of 1,507 · page 9 of 76
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