guest: absolutely the majority not. i think most people would get there on their own merit, that's why you don't necessarily need dei, but i really appreciate you calling from baltimore because we have over the last few weeks than focusing on very successful americans who happened to be black and how they contribute to the better way of life in baltimore. and i would encourage you also to subscribe to the baltimore sun. i had to get that in there. host: armstrong williams, his website is armstrongwilliams.com, also the owner of the baltimore sun. guest:washington journal contin. host: welcome back. we are joined now by elie mystal , a justice correspondent and columnist for "the nation." guest: thank you so much for

having me. host: i want to start with this associated press article with the headline "trump administration once a supreme court to let the firing of whistleblower agency had proceed." could you get us up to court on -- up to speed on what that case is about and what the question is? guest: trump likes to fire people and he think because he is president he can fire anybody wants for any reason whether they were not just because he feels like it and remembers it from his tv days, right. there are laws regarding how you can fire people when they work for the federal government. who you can fire, what the proper process is and all that sort of thing. he wants to ignore those laws, a north people who have the positions that are authorized by congress, and fire people willy-nilly and he is hoping for the supreme court to let them let them do that. there are specifically laws in place to protect whistleblowers from retaliatory firings.

one of the reasons why we have whistleblowers is because we have these laws, but trump because he has that kind of mobster mentality, he wants people to have america and never say anything against them, so he thinks that it whistleblower law is completely ridiculous and he should never be bound by it, and so we have classic set up of trump vs. american law and he is once again hoping the supreme court allows them to escape the realities of american law and quite frankly the supreme court has done that for him before and might well do that for him again. host: so when do you think the supreme court would rule on this? guest: the timing right now, i cant quite no. there is so much percolating through the lower courts to the supreme court. we've seen in the past the supreme court can move very quickly, especially when it wants to help trump. we see in the court can move very slowly, when extending the timeframe is in his benefit.

and i don't know how they will play this one. what i do know if the supreme court has the conservatives, the republican justices, the most extremist ones believe in this very impactful theory called unitary executive theory which basically holds that the executive branch of government, article two of the constitution is the president of the united states and nobody else, that he is the entire executive branch and everybody in the executive branch from a whistleblower to the department of justice, everybody serves at his pleasure. that is something they have been trying to push over the years. trump is going to give them many opportunities to push that theory, to stretch that theory even further and make him an even more powerful present, and people often wonder why would the supreme court give him so much power, aren't they concerned about their own power?

and of course they are, but the idea here is that if you make the president kind of the very most powerful person in the world, and the only person who can tell the president know is the supreme court because the supreme court then becomes the only body that is able to say. if they make up the theory, then they are the only people who can tell you if somebody has gone too far against their made theory, right. it's not congress, it's not the people voters elected who can restrain the president, it is the court and only the supreme court, so that is why giving the executive more power actually rebounds to give the supreme court itself even more power, and that is what roberts has always been about, chief justice roberts has always been about arrogating as much power to himself and his court as he possibly can. host: you said that the president does not have the legal authority to fire whoever he wants whenever he wants, but

he and elon musk have been making the argument that the people who are being fired and the federal government are in unelected bureaucracy, that we are trying to restore democracy by getting rid of these people, and that yes, the president should have the right to fire people that are not on board with his policies. guest: first of all, i don't want to hear anything from elon musk. you can't be an unelected bureaucrat talking about the dangers unelected bureaucrats i voted many times in my life and never once have i seen elon musk's name on a ballot. i don't know anybody who has pulled a lever for him, so he needs to shut the hell up. he's going to talk about unelected bureaucrats running america. number two, of course the president has the power and should have the power to assign people to work with him and advance his agenda. we have an entire process for

this. it is called the cabinet and if you think about the cabinet, this idea that the president can just hire or fire anybody wants at any time, we know that's not true because we know that even for his own cabinet, even for the people that he put in charge of executive agencies, they have to go through a senate confirmation process. that has happened throughout american history. the secretary of state, the secretary of war, now the secretary of defense, the attorney general, all these people have to be confirmed by the senate, and the senate doesn't want to confirm somebody then the president can't have that person in that position. hello, mr. matt gaetz, i hope you are well wherever you are in florida. but we know just from a basic understanding of american civics that what trump and musk are arguing for is provably wrong and inconsistent with american law. host: i'd just like to say, elon

musk right now is a special advisor to the president, and the president can have whoever advising him he likes, and they are not seven-confirmed. guest: yes, elon musk is an advisor so he cannot talk to me about being in unelected official holding our. and sure, the president to have advisors. the president can talk to whoever he wants. he wants to put his body -- buddy musk on the payroll, his daughter or his son-in-law on the payroll, that is fine, he can talk to whoever he wants. but there is an entire government that he represents. there is an entire government that he works for any does not have unaccountable power to hire and fire every single person in the federal government. he just doesn't. and they just prove to you why he doesn't. the idea that just because you are the president can reach all

the way down into a lowly civil service person working in the gao and fire them if they happened to be black, that is insane and that is again against the entire thrust of american civics. not even law, just a pacific structure of how the country works. this isn't how it is supposed to work. trump is claiming authority that no other president has had, and you know that he is asking for something that no other president has had because he has to ask for it. if this is how we always did it, then trump wouldn't have to ask the supreme court to let him do it, because it would just be the thing that is always done. it is not always done, this isn't have a supposed to work and there is a really good reason for why it is not supposed to work because we like to think of the president as one official among many. he has a specific job, a unique job, an important job, but he is not the only person who has authority in the federal government. host: elie mystal is our guest,

a justice correspondent columnist with the nation. if you'd like to join the conversation, you can. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. it's president trump has said that he will abide by court orders that block parts of his agenda. do you see that as likely, and what happens if that doesn't happen? guest: he's already lying, he's not abiding by court orders against him right now. the federal funding freeze, the put on is being blocked. the republic did a report on this last week. if you go to organizations that are expecting federal checks, they will tell you in many

cases, the money hasn't been turned back on. that is a clear example of trump lying to everybody's face. and all of us are pretending like it's normal. it's not normal. he said he will abide by court orders. this is a court order against him. he is not abiding by it. a, b, c. so do i think he will abide by future court orders? well, hell, i don't know. he's not abiding by this one. maybe he'll abide by some other one he finds more amenable to him. here's the rub, mimi, here's my real issue. whatever trump says he is going to abide by, there has so far been no at all indication he will enforce court orders against his owner elon musk. we haven't seen any indication of that at all. there's no suggestion at all that trump will impose a court order against elon musk telling

him to rein it in. that's what i'm most worried about. but that's because i already know that trump is lying about whether or not he himself will follow court orders because he's not following a court order right now. host: i want to play for you white house secretary caroline leavitt when she was responding to people who say that trump's actions are causing a constitutional crisis and then i'll get your response. [videotape] karoline: i'd like to address a narrative we've seen emerging. many outlets have been fear mongering the american people in believing there's a constitutional crisis taking place here at the white house. i've been hearing those words a lot lately. but in fact the real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch where district court judges in liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block president

trump's basic executive authority. we believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law and issued at least 12 injunctions against this administration the past 14 days, often without citing any evidence or grounds for their lawsuits. this is part of a larger concerted effort by democrat activists and nothing more than the continuation of the weaponization of justice against president trump. quick news flash to these liberal judges supporting their obstructionist efforts, 77 million americans voted to elect this president. and each injunction is an abuse of the rule of law in an attempt to thwart the will of the people. as the president clearly stated in the oval office yesterday, we will comply with the law and the courts but we will also continue to seek every legal remedy to ultimately overturn these radical injunctions and ensure president trump's policies can be enacted.

host: your reaction to that? guest: if i can translate that gobbledygook, every judge i don't like is a constitutional crisis. she's obviously wrong. it's a well established part of american law that when you do something you can be sued and that lawsuit will go to a judge and that judge will make a ruling and that ruling will be appealed and once you get to a final ruling, that ruling is final. that's just how it works. there is no constitutional crisis with judges imposing the law. there is one with presidents ignoring the law. that's the inversion leavitt is trying to gas light people and it is very simple to have a court order and follow it. that's normal. it's easy. it's trump who doesn't want to do the normal easy thing and trying to say these judges doing

their job is a constitutional problem. republicans have been saying trump was elected with 77 million people. so that somehow means he won a majority of the vote he gets to do whatever he wants. again, that's not how it works. that's not how law or civic works. the president was elected fairly. congratulations to all your success, donald trump. he's still part of a system. he's still part of the legal structure. he's not above that legal structure and there are therefore limitations on what he can do no matter how many people want him to do it. there are things he can do and things he can't do. the judges are saying in many cases he is exceeding his

constitutional and legal authority. just because 77 million people ostencibly want him to exceed his constitutional and legal authority doesn't mean he can. it's that simple. host: let's go back to the supreme court, your cover article for "the nation" how trump could remake the supreme court for a generation with the subheading donald trump is poised to become the first president since f.d.r. to have appointed the majority of the high court justices, his potential picks are terrifying. guest: so liberals generally think the supreme court can't get any worse because it's already stacked 6-3 with republican appointees over democratic appointees, and i write to remind people it can always get worse and worse right now is taking that republican 6-3 majority and making it permanent for the lifetime of my natural life and everybody

reeling this program's natural life and two older justices are republican, clarence thomas is 76 and samuel alito is 74. if both those two men retire in the next four years, trump will have the opportunity to replace them with those men 30 years younger, thus at some level, i can't say permanentizing but giving him control of the supreme court long after trump's life. these are justices that are going to outlive trump. these are justices that are going to impose the maga legacy on the rest of us through unelected means for the next 30 or 40 years and trump is in position if alito and thomas retire to become the first president since f.d.r. to appoint not just supreme court justices but the majority of the supreme court if these two men retire will be appointed by trump and that is what keeps me

up at night. host: there's a question to you from dave in elmira, n york, in for the following court orders p. if i'm not mistaken, biden did not follow court orders either giving forgiveness of millions of dollars in school loans. guest: he did follow it. they said he can't do it that way so he did it some other way. he followed the letter of the law and spirit of the law and because he got an adverse court order he didn't give up on the program and tried to find another legal way to achieve his end. trump did that last time. the first muslim ban overruled by the court, the second muslim ban overruled by the court. did trump say no i'm going to stop banning muslims. no, he didn't say i'm going to stop banning muslims but tried again and again until he got a

muslim ban the supreme court was willing to uphold. i think that was a horrible decision by the supreme court in trump v. hawaii but that's a problem with the supreme court, not donald trump. donald trump when he was trying to amorally ban muslims coming into the country did it the right way. joe biden trying to relieve student debt relief did it the right way. what trump is doing now by ignoring the court orders ordering him to restore the funding he illegally and unconstitutionally took away, that's different in kind than anything that biden did and anything that trump did the first time and frankly that anything that any other american president has done until we have to go all the way back to andrew jackson or abraham lincoln to find somebody who openly defined a court order. host: let's talk to callers and start with maria in atlanta, democrat. good morning, maria. caller: good morning c-span

family and mia and elie, i was wondering whether they'd bring you back again. i bigtime follow you. nevertheless trump gets on tv and says all kind of stuff and a wild man got on tv and talk about how elon musk helps him and swing states and how he went over there and worked on his computer and said he's awfully good at computers. do you actually think because i never heard none of the media ever pick this up again and comment, you think he was trying to say the election was stolen? guest: no, i don't. thank you for the love and for your own mental health, try very hard to stop watching trump on tv, it's not good for you. he's going to say the same thing. once you see a dog bark and the dog run, you don't need to hear it the rest of your afternoon. go out and touch grass, man, because it will get in your soul if you listen to that man too much. as opposed to the specific

allegation, no. trump is not the most rhetorically cautious individual. he's not trying to say elon musk helped him steal the election and i do not think elon musk help steal the election but i actually think that democrats and liberals somehow sometimes roll into or protect themselves with feelings that maybe something fishy or something untoward happened because it's easy to believe 77 million americans voted for a convicted felon crazy person, right. it's easier to believe something had to be fishy there than no, they knew who trump was and just wanted to do this to the country. the latter is actually true. no, i don't think elon musk helped him steal anything. i do think now he's in power, elon musk is helping him do some

serious illegal activity with musk wielding power he never should have but that's a different problem. host: let's talk to a republican in clifton park. caller: trump won the election fair and square and he has a mandate to govern conservatively. he's allowed to govern conservatively for at least the next two years until the midterm and the next four years until a republican successor will have to run again. so trump is given the latitude because he won the election by the popular vote and a landslide electoral vote. guest: we agree he won fairly and doesn't believe he won the mandate. that's a word, who cares. he won fairly and is allowed to govern as a conservative and the conservatives are allowed to like the crazy things he d. what

he's not allowed to do is illegal stuff. surely, we can agree he's not allowed to do illegal things. that he's not allowed to do unconstitutional things. surely we can agree on that. while you and i might disagree on what's legal and constitutional, surely we can agree a federal judge is the right person, is the person who should be able to tell us what's legal and what's constitutional and what is not. so mark, can we not agree that trump, while yes, he's allowed to govern conservatively, while yes, he's allowed to do what the people elected him to do, he is not allowed to break the law. host: are you still there? do you agree with that? caller: what trump is doing is the right thing. he's doing the right thing. guest: is it the legal thing, mark? who is supposed to decide whether or not it's the legal thing? is nobody supposed to decide

whether or not it's a legal thing. is anything trump says is legal? are we back to nixon now. when the president does it, it's not illegal? is that literally the best can you get to, mark? or do you think maybe somebody who is not the president should have a say in whether or not what the president is doing is legal or illegal? host: let's give mark a chance. go ahead, mark. what did you think of that? caller: i think what trump is doing is great right now. he's cutting waste. host: that's not the question, mark. as far as legality. caller: i think that he has a large latitude and we're going to have to find out because obviously these court orders and judges blocking things, i think they will eventually work their way through the process, i suppose. host: the court system. caller: yeah, that's it. host: got it.

elie mystal. there's a posting on x i'm sure you're aware of by vice president vance who said this, if a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. if a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. judges aren't allowed to control the executives' legitimate power. what's your response to that? guest: i was harvard and j.d. vance went to yale and i'm feeling really good about my choices if that's the best j.d. vance can do right now. if j.d. vance was right, the dobbs decision canceling the right to abortion was illegitimate and illegal on its face and joe biden should have personally performed abortions for the last four years if j.d. vance was right. of course j.d. vance is not right. j.d. vance sounds like an idiot when he says that because the idea that judges -- that the third branch of government doesn't have a legitimate check

on the power of the other two branches, the legislative branch and the executive branch, again, flies in the face of basic american civics, all right? i have many problems with the supreme court and how it wields power. in the past i'm in favor of what the scholars call jurisdiction tripping and a way to limit the power they may have on constitutional issues and all for reform of the supreme court. i don't think it's the greatest body on earth but it is a legitimate part of american government and acting what it can say or constitutional or not is just not something we do in this country. we understand the judges have a role and the rest of us have to follow the judges rule. if you don't like it, there are

many ways to reform the supreme court and many articles i've listed j.d. vance is allowed to read but to say he can do it because he's president flies in the law of civics. j.d. vance knows that. he's saying what he's saying because it's in his best political interest to lick trump's boots even if it flies in the face of all law and reason and civics. host: here's lewis in new jersey, independent. good morning, lewis. caller: good morning, sir. this reminds me when trump was in his first term and had judges blocking him from building the wall. it's politics and judges should not be involved in politics. he's an executive and can fire anybody he wants.

maybe. guest: maybe you feel good inside knowing there's a strong daddy person firing people. maybe that's what you want but he doesn't have the power to fire anyone he wants no matter how many times he beats his chest and says he's the president and he's the executive. caller: i'll lick anyone's boots. guest: why can't he fire people the right way? why can't he use that process, lewis? caller: i agree with you there, ok. host: let him address his second point. guest: you were saying the judges were playing politics with the wall like in the first trump administration. have you forgotten what happened in the biden years because there were decisions from these exact same judges that were averse to

biden's agendas and policies and one of the other callers brought up the student debt relief as one. if you think the judges are playing politics, do you think it's politicks that hurts trump? really? because i seem to recall. caller: i agree with you what they did to biden, too, sir. i agree with you there, too. guest: so you think judges shouldn't have as much power as they do? caller: it's politics, that's all. host: all right. and i want to ask you about an article you wrote for the nation with the headline, trump's attacks on d.e.i. are a green light for the government to discriminate. i want to you explain that because critics of d.e.i. say it is discrimination because it's preferring people of diverse races, women over men, that kind of thing. what's your response to that? guest: so d.e.i. was invented by white people. d.e.i. was invented by white men

to try to comply with the civil rights act of the 14th amendment of the constitution. d.e.i. was their white male creation to comply with constitutional law. what diverse people, if that's what we're calling us today, what women have been asking for has not been d.e.i. they've been asking for fair and equal employment opportunities. they've been asking for the application of the equal -- of the equality clause in the 14th amendment and the application of the civil rights act in hiring. that's it. it was white guys that were just like, we don't know how to hire all these people so we're just doing some d.e.i. and makes sure we have to hire black people and women and latinos and whatever. that was their solution. now they don't like that solution anymore, that's fine.

d.e.i. is a policy. it's constitutional to change policy. trump has every authority he might need to change the policy of the united states. my question is what are you doing instead? what are you doing instead, trump and meta and musk to make sure you're in compliance with the civil rights act and 14th amendment and there they never have an answer. host: we'll hire the best person for the job and therefore we knorr compliance. guest: is that what is happening? d.e.i. was amended and it wasn't happening because they weren't able to highway the most qualified person for every job and only able to highway the whitest male person for every job, right? that's what was happening before

d.e.i. and now do we see them hiring the most qualified person for every job? do we see them only firing the least qualified people for every job? no, we don't see that. in your last segment with armstrong williams, there was a caller who specifically asked that man, does he think that every single person who works in the federal government who is of color is a d.e.i. hire and was unqualified for their job and armstrong says no, of course not, that would be ridiculous. of course he said, and i'm quoting him from your last segment, said most people got their job on merit which is an interesting statement because they're firing everybody. they're firing people not based on merit, not based on their qualifications, not based on their actual work history. and they're firing people. and that violates the constitution.

it is legal for you to get rid of d.e.i. policies. what's not legal is for you to fire people just because they happen to be black at work. it's ridiculous to fire everybody who has been hired under a d.e.i. program without any kind of assessment of their actual work performance, their actual, dare i say, merit for the job. but they're not doing it that way. they're firing everybody who happens to be black in government. that's what is what is legal and what the problem is. host: let's hear from jennifer in midlothian. good morning. caller: thank you for taking the time to listen to our calls. my question is piggybacking on what you're talking about with d.e.i., i tend to understand, right, we know there's no statute for taxation, quote, without representation. but what legal recourse do those of us who fall within these marginalized youth, i.e., youth,

lbgtq+, those labeled as marginalized communities to push back on everything being dismantled in the name of d.e.i. if we are federal taxpayers and we're paying our money but every book that represents us is being banned from schools, every program that potentially may create spaces and access for these individuals, special education, all the same, we're paying our money. this is an economic issue. so as citizens and residents of whatever state you're in, commonwealth of virginia, commonwealth of massachusetts, how can we push back and say wait, my tax dollars are going to everybody but my community, and how is that legal that we don't have any recourse because they're doing it in a discriminatory way like you said under the impies of well, that's considered d.e.i. because we just don't want it. no, we have title 6 and title 7 and all these rights we're supposed to have access to and we're paying our money and we're seeing we don't get the services and access and empowerment we

should be getting. so do we need recourse? guest: jennifer, i believe it is illegal. you named the statute. i believe that what they are doing is illegal under the civil rights act. again, that's not because they're changing the d.e.i. policy. d.e.i. is not required by the civil rights act but fairness is but equality is and so when they willy-nilly fire everybody for the crime of being black, fire everybody for the crime of being a woman without any individualized assessment of their merit, i believe that is violating the civil rights act and should catch a lawsuit. now, unfortunately, once they catch that lawsuit and i know lewis is still out there, why are they suing the courts, but when they do catch that lawsuit, eventually that goes to the supreme court and the supreme court, my read on the six republican judge is that they don't think the civil rights act should be constitutional in the first place. they don't like the voting rights act and roberts has done everything he can to eviscerate

the voting rights act which is the most important piece of legislation in the american history. they've already gotten through the 1965 voting rights act, i believe next on the chopping block for these conservative is the 1964 civil rights act and don't think the lawsuit that trump deserves to catch because what he is doing and the way he's doing it is legal i know that's going to work at the supreme court. so to jennifer's question, what's the recourse? the recourse is the recourse that the people always have. trump was elected by a majority of americans and the only people who can take that power away are a majority of americans. activating, voting, convincing people. i personally have started to boycott target. i vote with my wallet as well, target specifically because target has spent a decade telling my community, we like you here, come to target and put your products on our shelves. target is basically jerry

maguire. we love black people except when trump is in charge but we hate black people and target deserves to not have my dollars at this moment and doing what i can with my wallet and my feet and my voice. we all have to do that. in the words of kermit the frog, we need more dogs and cats and mum either and chickens and things. host: let's hear from denia, republican. caller: can you hear me? host: go right ahead. caller: i have a question biden didn't do nothing but stay on vacation most of the time and i hear people keep calling in and badmouthing trump and what he's doing and everything, and you know, it's like deja vu. are we going to keep trying to put trump in the courts again

during his presidency or are we going to give him a chance? i say give him a chance. i think he's the best president we've ever had. and whatever he does, he knows right from wrong. he ain't going to do anything wrong. look at all the lawsuits they did and all of them dismissed. come on. it's the witch-hunt starting all over. this person you have on your show morning, if they are so smart and think that trump is doing wrong, why ain't they president? they don't they get off their lazy butt and run for president. host: let's get a response. go ahead, elie. guest: i will fight trump with everything i have and fight him on the streets and never yield to this orangemen us. if that makes denir unhappy i apologize but i will do everything in my small power to

fight this man and what he's trying to do to my country. host: but his supporters are saying that's exactly the problem, you're just fighting him for no reason. so give us a reason. guest: you want me to start listing the reasons. host: give us a little bit. guest: that man has been convicted on 34 counts of a felony. the only reason those other cases have been dismissed against him is because he has judges in his pocket like eileen cannon. the supreme court gave him absolute immunity for official acts for the first time in american history. the president was placed squarely above the law by his handpicked supreme court justice. we have been talking about his racist actions with d.e.i. and calling white south africans to live as refugees in this country while expelling actual black and brown refugees living here. he's trying to overturn the 14th amendment and strip away birthright citizenship from

people who have been born americans and those are the reasons i can think of to oppose him off the top of my head. so yeah, i will keep fighting. host: you have a book coming out next month called "bad law," 10 popular laws ruling america. give us one of those, a real brief explanation. guest: let's go with voting registration. all voting registration should be renounced. voting registration does not help keep our elections safe. all it does is increase the participation in our elections and the first chapter in the book, we have a section of the book how voting requirement eligibility requirements and you should be automatically registered to vote and that registration should be portable which means when you move you're still registered, the registration follows you, you don't have to chase registration. people might think it's a radical idea and i point out to people in the first chapter of that book that's the way they do

it in most of the rest of the functional democracies in the world. it's how they do it in england and france and how they do it in argentina and australia. that's how they do it everywhere else. we're the slow people. we're the people who haven't caught up with the 21st century by still doing registration in a case by case basis instead of having automatic and mandatory registration for all eligible voters and if we had that, i wonder if the 77 million people who voted for trump, i wonder if that number would be enough. host: dave in lynchburg, virginia wants end on a positive note. you suggested what keeps you up at night, conversely, what gives you hope? guest: i've got two kids, 12 and 9 and beautiful little boys and they're not afraid.

they're not depressed all the time and think the world is going to get better. they understand we've got serious problems but my kids think they'll be the people who come up with a solution for climate change. they think they'll be the people who come up with solutions for our problems and i take a lot of strength and hope from them. i do think generally and it's right to say, i do think the kids are right and i think the kids are seeing how my generation, again x is -- gen-x is screwing up and they're committed to doing better and hope it remains the case. host: you can find