Thanks for listening. For earlier access to these episodes, access to Ask Me Anything sessions, and extended breakdowns of historical and current events, please consider joining our Warning Premium community by clicking the link in the description to this episode. Today is June twenty first, twenty twenty three, and American democracy remains in crisis. The evidence of this is from today's lead of The New York Times. Let me read
from it. Donald J. Trump has promised that if he wins back to presidency, he will appoint a special prosecutor to quote go after end quote President Biden and his family. But He's not the only Republican running for president who appears to be abandoning long established norms in Washington presidents keeping their hands out of specific Justice Department investigations and
prosecut custance. Mister Trump, who leads the GOP field by around thirty percentage points in national public polls, yields such powerful influence that only a few of his Republican rivals are willing to clearly say presidents should not interfere in such Justice Department decisions. After mister Trump's vow to direct the Justice Department to appoint a quote real end quote
prosecutor to investigate the bidence. The New York Times asked each of his Republican rivals questions aimed at laying out what limits, if any, they believed presidents must or should respect when it comes to White House interference with federal law enforcement decisions. The incredible aspect about the New York Times question, of course, is that it's taken until twenty twenty three for them to ask anybody in the world Publican party the question, because the assault against the rule
of law has been ongoing for seven years. But at any rate, the New York Times has finally asked the question. Better late than never, As they say, let's continue reading though another remarkable paragraph that highlights the extremism that has
taken route fully in the Republican Party. According to The New York Times, the Republican candidates quote responses reveal a party that has turned so hard against federal law enforcement that it is no longer widely considered good politics To clearly answer in the negative a question that was once uncontroversial. Do you believe presidents should get involved in the investigations
and prosecutions of individuals? End quote at hand is a fundamental question It is a question about liberty, freedom, the rule of law, political power its limits, and the safety of every American to be safe in their homes, free from the knock on the door in the middle of
the night. That is the question at hand. Each American has a birthright of freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of faith and religion, freedom of conscience, the freedom to pursue happiness and to become whatever it is they wish to be. That is what freedom is. Each American has a right to defy authority, to protest injustice, to raise their voices in dissent, to say no without fear of consequence of reprisal from the government in the form of elected officials
abusing their power. This is a free country. America is not a dictatorship. In America, we do not imprison our political opponents on a whim. We do not say that because I lost an election, I will seek revenge and when I resume power, I will imprison those who opposed me. This is not American. This is as un American a sentiment as there could conceivably be. This is a reckless abandonment of the precepts, the ideas, and ideals of the
American Revolution. The Constitution in two hundred years of jurisprudence that has evolved to make the United States of America a global standard for the rule of law, for the application of justice blindly on the facts, not on the basis of fantasy, of politics, of false accusation. Does anybody have any doubt whatsoever that Donald Trump would not make a false accusation against a political enemy to imprison them. How many would he imprison? How many journalists would be
locked up? How many opponents? How many activists would it be, by the hundreds, by the thousands. It's time we stop and think about these issues, to think about them both abstractly and concretely. The issue is one of restraint. And this is the concept that The New York Times doesn't seem to understand at a foundational and conceptual level about how the American government is organized. Take this remarkable paragraph
from their story. Mister Trump's closest rival, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, has flatly said he does not believe the Justice Department is independent from the White House as a matter of law, while leaving it ambiguous where he stands on the issues of presidents get involved in investigation decisions. The New York Times may be unclear on this, but Governor DeSantis is one hundred percent correct, and I won't
be saying that very often here. The Justice Department is a part of the executive branch, and as such, the President does have authority over the Justice Department. There should be no lack of clarity over that question. The Attorney General, like the FBI Director, serves at the pleasure of the President of the United States and with the advice and
consent of the United States Senate. Like every federal official, including the President, these people are invested with temporary and limited powers under a Constitution of the United States that is the oldest and most enduring in the world. The issue is not authority. The issue is restraint. The American system of government, like all democracy, requires the practice of restraint.
There is no acceptable argument in a democracy that grants the head of state, the commander in chief, the arbitrary power to order investigations of those that displease him, whether the displeasure be something that they set in a newspaper column or wrote, or set on television, or god forbid, had the temerity even to challenge the most powerful person in the world politically, for his job for his office.
For seven long years from the moment that Donald Trump descended the escalator into the batwels of Trump Tower and began his crusade against American democracy, the American press has largely foregone asking questions about his beliefs in democracy in the government. There have been few questions that test his
understanding of it conceptually foundationally. The simple truth is Donald Trump has no clue about how the American system is organized, and judging by the paragraph written by five New York Times journalists, some of them don't either. The issue at hand is whether the use of law enforcement will be politically weaponized by politicians for their self advantage, their self interest.
What we're talking about here is whether to officially license corruption and the police apparatus of the state for the purpose of politics. The second that happens, we have a secret police in the United States, and democracy will be strangled murdered by a secret police. A country where there are leaders, whether it be a president, a governor, a crooked mayor a sheriff, can make their own law and apply it and target their enemies is not a free country.
It's a dictatorship. This is what Americans must guard against. This is what Americans must stand against. And this speaks to the deep, deep, deep, deep, deep deep rot inside the Maga Republican Party. Every single person running for president knows how wrong this is, how sick and twisted this is with regard to the entire American way of life, which is dependent on the concept of an evenly applied rule of law, with no citizen above it and no
citizen below. This is a radical departure from the American experiment, from the foundational ideas that Martin Luther King, that Frederick Douglass, that Abraham Lincoln, that John Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt and a thousand other patriots stood for, some martyring themselves, some laying down their lives, some dedicating their lives for the preservation of a system that keeps us safe from the jackboot of government authority into talitarianism. That's what this story in
the New York Times is about. One of America's two major political parties has left the defense of democracy to the other political party. They have turned against it. The aphrodisiac of power, the desire of one man, and the cowardice of many many others have created one of the great threats America faces, and there is no institution coming to the rescue. It is up to the American people
to defend the American way of life. Millions of Americans have sacrificed so much to pass on to us a chance to make our country more perfect, more just, and more free. They did not finish that job. They left it to us. We will not finish that job. We will hand it all, but we must not allow well we hand off to become so corrupted that a wanna be dictator like Donald Trump can order the arrest, detention, and imprisonment of anyone he wishes just because he doesn't
like what they say, or think or believe. That is as un American a thought, a concept as there could ever be