Steve Bannon’s NPR Interview: Presidential Power & Immigration

So last week, I think it was Thursday, NPR did a really good interview with Steve Bannon.

And with NPR, it was Steve Inskeep, who is fabulous. And the way that he knew the material and the way that he asked the questions, really good interview. But one of the things that they went on about, of course, they got into immigration and they got into what Bannon called insurrectionist judges. So the way they look at things, folks, just generally on Bannon's side is that anybody who gets in the way of Trump, no matter the argument,

no matter who they are, they're insurrectionists, right? You're the enemy. You're the enemy. We have a president that just needs to have free reign is what they're looking for. In so many ways, that's dangerous, because right now it's kind of showing its head with immigration, but tomorrow it could be you, the way that they're thinking about things and the way that they're thinking about the power that Trump has, folks.

Right now, it obviously is applying to immigration, but tomorrow that same logic that they're using could easily be transferred to you.

So one of the things that just came out of this is that bannon keeps saying he likes to have it both ways he he likes to say that he's for the little guy the working class guy right tax the rich bannon says i think we had to tax the rich very populist you know everybody loves that i i do too i think we ought to do more obviously but one of the things that doesn't make sense here is that he's also in favor of extending the tax cuts and jobs

act that trump passed back in 2017 which we know favors the rich. So on one hand, he's saying, you know, let's tax the rich. And on the other hand, he's saying, let's extend those tax cuts that unfavorably hurt the middle class in favor of huge tax cuts for the rich. And besides the fact that they're doing all of these doge cuts, right? I mean, they're all over the place, cutting everything back.

Social Security, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, all these things that help the little guy you know they're cutting it back obviously trump a billionaire doesn't use the cfpb will never you know have the need for any sort of benefit from the cfpb and of course donald trump will never call social security so they're getting rid of all the things that they really don't need but these things benefit the little guy so they're they're cutting all of this stuff,

That hurts the little guy and say, you know, we've got deficits. But on the same hand, they're turning around and saying, we're going to give all of these people basically the rich tax cuts. So it's like, you know, and I've said this before, it's not even budget neutral. It's budget negative, the Trump administration right now. It's a mess. It's a mess.

So the part that i really want to focus on in this interview is how trump has suspended habeas corpus and due process and i we all know what this is a refresher wouldn't hurt though habeas corpus is a legal action to challenge unlawful detention or imprisonment it's an article one of section nine of the constitution which says the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless in cases of rebellion or invasion.

It applies to immigrants. Even undocumented immigrants can file a habeas corpus petition if they believe they are being unlawfully detained by the government. Then you've got due process. And what that is, is the government must allow fair procedures before depriving someone of life, liberty, or property. The constitutional basis for this is in the 5th and the 14th Amendments of the Constitution. and yes, it applies to immigrants.

Courts have consistently held that non-citizens, including undocumented immigrants, are entitled to due process protections. There's also key Supreme Court cases, folks, that back all of this up. There's one called Zadviedis v. Davis in 2001. The court ruled that indefinite detention of non-citizens is unconstitutional. There's another case called Beaumedienne versus Bush going back to 2008 and it says that even non-citizens held at Guantanamo Bay have the right to habeas corpus.

So that's the law behind it but still anyone who says that's you know we can't do that you know basically like Bannon we can't give these immigrants habeas corpus you know we can't give them due process, and the judges that step in the middle become insurrectionist judges see how that works it's like forget the constitution but i want to play that recording of how that went how the interview went with steve inski folks so here it is and i'll kind of break in on a few

occasions but uh really good stuff here and it just gives you a window into that deep dark world.

That people like Steve Bannon thrive in and how they think. And just keep in mind how this could be used. Today, it's immigrants. Tomorrow, it could be you. Chief Justice Taney tried to get in the middle of Abraham Lincoln and what President Lincoln did to the City Council of Baltimore and the mayor of Baltimore when they refused to let Union troops pass through Baltimore to the relief of Washington, D.C. In those very early days of the Civil War when it was all in the balance.

And Washington could have been very easily captured by rebel forces from the South. So what he's talking about here is that he's talking about a case where Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. But keep in mind that the Confederate rebels were in danger of taking over Washington, D.C. I mean, that's a real threat. And I don't think you can say that But you can't conflate immigration that we have today, folks, even though they call them terrorists.

I don't think you can conflate that to say we're about to lose the White House through an insurrection. It's not the same. And what did President Lincoln do? President Lincoln threw the city council and the mayor in jail with no indictment. And Tawney went to him and said, hey, with habeas courses, you either indict them tomorrow or they're free.

And you know the apocryphal stories he sent john hay over with a message to say tell tawny if you force this the president's gonna throw you in jail so he ran as a warlord and look how many times look how many times president lincoln in a war okay had to resort to emergency powers to do this i think we've had seven emergency powers now or eight emergency powers enacted by the president he's fully within his rights as commander chief and yes we are coming to a we're coming not just to

a constitutional crisis, we're coming to a convergence of crises that are going to start hitting us this summer.

One of these is the constitutional. I'm glad that you brought this up because in this very book of mine that I brought, I write about one of the instances with Chief Justice Tawney. And it's interesting, Lincoln did suspend the right of habeas corpus. In the case of a Maryland man who had been burning bridges. I guess Steve Inscape just agreed with me on that. Hang on, hang on. Tawney said Congress could do that.

Lincoln said, I think the president can do that. In the end, a few months later, when Congress returned, Congress voted to approve what he had done. In the end, he got back within the constitutional system. Seward and Lincoln were so concerned that what they had done in that interim time, as you remember, was... Outside the Constitution, that Seward, because these are the smartest lawyers in the country, right?

Seward and him, Lincoln would sit there and talk about the implicit powers of the Constitution, the implied powers of the Constitution for the chief executive. It's brought up brilliantly in Spielberg's movie, Lincoln. I think there's a lot of discussion of that. But you're right. Lincoln did it. That was all paper. They papered over what they had to do after the fact, to cover themselves. But in the moment, what President Lincoln did, exactly what President Trump's done.

You've had a judge here, Bosberg, try to step in the middle of a commander-in-chief making decisions about aircraft in the air. You can't have right now the hill that they're... And folks, I don't need to tell you that there's really no comparison. I mean, Washington is not about to fall. The immigrants are not rushing on Washington trying to take over our government. It's not the same situation that Abraham Lincoln faced. And to say that it is, is sort of a, I mean, it's a stretch.

I'd like to see how that plays out.

I mean, this is their argument. If it does go to the Supreme Court, this is going to be their argument, is Abraham Lincoln did this, so Trump should be able to do this. And the two are not related. Dying on is about a human trafficker, right? A human trafficker that is down in a prison, has been sent down to a prison. They're trying to say, if every one of these criminal terrorists have due process, it's 200 years before they get it. It's not going to happen.

It's just not going to happen. The American people back Trump on this, and they have to go, and they're going to go. And the argument against due process is just that it's inconvenient. It takes too much time for millions of people. It's not about—the convenience thing is one, but it's just you don't need it. It's not necessary. It's time of war. Time of war. We could raise questions about the Constitution all through the

president. Now, you do agree with me now, given your knowledge of taunting. So, folks, that's what he said. So that gives you an idea. This is a time of war, is how they've, you know, papered this whole thing with immigration. and you've heard them call immigrants terrorists. Time and time and time again. You've heard me talk about how there are studies that factually lay out how immigrants are actually less likely to commit crimes than Americans are.

I mean, the crime rate among immigrants is less than your average everyday American. I mean, it's sort of like, what part of this terrorist thing are we going to believe? I mean, the facts don't support it, number one. And then folks, you notice how there's no dialogue right now whatsoever on immigration right now? There's none. There's nobody talking about it. There's no bills. This is it. This is it. We're just going to shut the borders down and there is not going to be any immigration.

And you can't have a country without immigration. You need people to pick the strawberries. You need people on the poultry plants, the pork plants, this kind of thing. I mean, this idea, this notion that we're not going to have any immigration is absolutely ridiculous.

As a country, we need to have sensible immigration. And look at it this way. Here's a good way to put it, folks. So for just about my whole life, what have they been saying about China? How have they been able to do what they've been able to do right in the past 30, 40 years? Cheap labor. Ask anybody. How did China get to where they are today? I mean, how can they make stuff and sell it so cheap? Cheap labor. Right? I mean, it's no secret.

Anybody will tell you that. So their main advantage, China's main advantage, has been cheap labor. And my whole point here, folks, is that immigrants can do for us what cheap labor has done for China. I mean, my God, did you realize that the minimum wage right now, the federal minimum wage, is $7.25 an hour? $7.25 an hour. That's cheap labor. I mean, there's no other way around it. I mean, who's going to work for $7.25 an hour?

And this whole argument that immigrants are terrorists is trash what they're really afraid of is in people like bannon i'm talking about here what they're really afraid of is that immigrants will replace us and that's that's why we're supposed to swallow this false narrative that even though the facts show us that it's they're not terrorists and that they commit less crime than americans we're supposed to swallow this whole narrative that they're that they're terrorists.

I mean, even though the facts show that they're more law-abiding than our neighbors, everyday Americans. So Trump is really trashing a source of cheap labor. And these people are doing jobs that Americans don't want to do. Let me put it this way to you. Have you ever heard of a citizen, an American citizen, complain that an immigrant took their job picking strawberries?

Or have you ever heard an American citizen say they took their job at the poultry plant or that they took their job doing the worst labor on a construction site? Has anyone ever complained about this? No. Hell no. No, nobody's complaining about the jobs that they're doing, only Trump. So what we need is to have sensible immigration, and we need to have a zero-tolerance policy on things like class A misdemeanors and felonies, or you get deported, right?

I mean, you got to follow the laws. I agree. You got to follow the laws. But folks, folks, cheap labor. I mean, we need to take advantage of this to help build our economy instead of calling them terrorists and trashing our economy. You're not doing business a favor by denying them the cheap labor that immigration can offer. What they do at the farms, you know, for these farmers is unbelievable.

Americans don't want to do what these people do. So for our American youth that don't want to do that, why don't you encourage them through, say, for example, paying for the first two years of college for free. Why don't you encourage them to go to college, right? And while you're at it, provide them with free health care along with all Americans, for God's sakes, so that they don't have to worry about being bankrupt while in college through some problem with their health.

And how about helping our youth with 0% educational loans instead of depressing their future like you're doing, Donald Trump, with wage garnishments that you just announced last week. You're going to garnish their wages because they're not paying their loans back. How about you structure the loans in a way that they get 0% interest and actually try to help them? So on one hand, he's denying the cheap labor.

On the other hand, he's trashing the youth by not doing everything that we can do to get them educated so that they aren't doing the kind of jobs that immigrants can do.

And folks, it's, gosh, it's high time that we start looking at immigration as a blessing for America and not a curse.