S2 Ep1001: Bill Kristol: Give Back the Statue of Liberty
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What controversial actions has Trump taken recently regarding pardons?
I'm living. I'm here. We're here. And there's that. I'd rather be living than dying. We got to start with the pardons that were voided, I guess, allegedly. Can you void via bleat? I guess that will be a question for Amy Coney Barrett to determine at some point. I think just after midnight in the East, Trump pleaded that Biden's preemptive pardons of his political foes, particularly the members of the House January 6th Committee, are all caps, void, vacant, and of no further force or effect because they were signed with an auto pen. This is now a emerging conspiracy theory on the right that Joe Biden was weakened at Bernie's at the White House and that there were like random staffers that were signing pardons that he didn't even know about. And they're using an auto pen to do it. There's some pretty obvious flaws in this theory, particularly that these were extremely high profile pardons that received a lot of news.
So it seems pretty unlikely that that happened while Joe Biden was was resting. So this, like many Trump stories, combines the ridiculous with the fascistic. But I'm wondering, what do you make of it?
I mean, it's super ridiculous to think that one president can void a previous president's pardons. Otherwise, we would have had a lot of that over the years, I suppose. They weren't always popular with the other party. Yeah, it's ludicrous. I mean, I think Andrew Egger made a good point in Morning Shots this morning, which shows how deeply, deeply Trump wants to go after the January 6th committee people. I mean, who was pardoned at the end of the day? The Biden family? if I recall correctly, Liz Cheney and Representative Thompson and one or two others, I think sort of very much from that world, I guess General Milley.
How is the Trump administration handling political foes?
So Trump's going after the rest, together 97 of them, or of us maybe I should say, I don't know quite how we fit into this list, but it really rankles him that he can't use the whole Justice Department and the authorities of the federal government to go after Liz Cheney and Betty Thompson, I suppose. So it shows how deep The hatred is, I guess, fascistic, as you say. We're so far beyond any sense of like, oh, this seems unseemly. Oh, this is kind of contrary to the rule of law. This is kind of contrary to the Constitution. This is kind of contrary to everything. You know, it's just...
Yeah, and look, there is – again, and we all know this, but as we're saying, there's the new – Alex Eisenstadt from Politico has a new book out that kind of covers the Trump 2024 through the campaign and the transition. And he's got a quote in there where Trump is talking to aides and being sarcastic and saying, listen, everybody, there'll be no retribution. There'll be no revenge. Wink, wink. I mean, he's obviously – like wrapped around the axle around this, and he's specifically targeting these people. And we talked about a little bit with David French on Friday, and that generally, historically, when presidents have, you know, or administrations have gone after political foes, not nearly as directly political foes as this, but people that, you know, where they made decisions that were based in politics rather nakedly.
you know, look at the Alberto Gonzalez situation for one example, that the administration usually tries to backfill that with like some other rationale. Right. That's like, this isn't, that's not really, this was not really politics. Right. Like what we were really trying to do was X, Y, and Z. And like the Trump administration is not even really doing that. Right.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What controversial actions has Trump taken recently regarding pardons?
0:40–2:18
2
How is the Trump administration handling political foes?
2:18–6:57
3
What is the significance of Pam Bondi's recent statements at the DOJ?
6:57–14:01
4
How is the Trump administration's immigration policy affecting visa holders?
14:01–22:41
5
What are the implications of the Alien Enemies Act on immigration?
22:41–26:14
6
Is the U.S. moving away from its identity as a land of hope and opportunity?
26:14–51:33
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from The Bulwark Daily
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Bill Kristol: It Always Comes Back to Trump/Russia