last two weeks we've been focusing on very successful americans who happen to be black and entrepreneurs and how they contribute to a better way of life in baltimore. i hope you follow that if not go to the baltimore sun.com. i would encourage you also to subscribe to the baltimore sunday i had to get that in. >> armstrong williams, knowing tv talkshow host, entrepreneur, website is www.armstrongwilliams.com also the owner of the esbaltimore su. >> always a pleasure. i always enjoy watching you when i'm not here you do sucha terrific job. >> thank you . >> coming up, president trump speaks to governors who were in town for the national governors association conference, we expect this to get underway shortly, here on c-span2. >> welcome back we are joined by ellen to stall justice correspondent and columnist for the nation. welcome to the program.

>> start with this associated press article with the headline "trump administration wants the supreme court to let the firing the whistleblower agency had ". could you get us up to speed on what the court case is about and what the issue is. >> trump likes to fire people he thinks because he is the president he can fire anybody wants for any reason whether or not they were appointed or not for just because he feels like it and remembers that from his tv days. there are laws regarding how to fire people when they work for the federal government who you can fire what the proper processes and all that. trump wants to ignore the laws ignore people who have different positions that are authorized by congress and fire people willy-nilly he's hoping for the supreme court to let them do that. there are laws in place for whistleblowers for retaliatory

firing. trump because he has that mobster mentality he wants people to have own merit and never say anything against him so he thinks the whistleblower laws completely ridiculous and should never be down by. so we have a classic setup of trump versus american law. quite frankly, the supreme court has done it for him before and might well do it again. >> when you think the supreme court would rule on this? >> the deciding on the court right now i can't quite know. there is so much percolating up through the lower courts to the supreme court we've seen in the past the supreme court to move very quickly. especially when it wants to help trump. we've seen the past the court can move very slowly when it wants when extending the timeframe is in trump's

benefits. i don't know how they will play this one. the supreme court has the conservatives on the supreme court the republican justices the most extremist ones believe in the very impactful theory called unitary executive theory. basically holds that the executive branch of government article 1 article 2 of the constitution is the president of the united states and nobody else use the entire executive branch and everybody on the executive branch from whistleblower head of the epa department of justice everybody serves at his pleasure or whim. that is something they been trying to push over the years trump is going to give them many opportunities to push that theory and stretch that theory even further and make him an even more powerful president people often wonder, why would the supreme court give trump so much power are r?they concerned about their own power and of

course they are but the idea is that if you make the president the most powerful person in the world the only person that can tell the president know is the supreme court. the supreme court becomes the only body that's able to say, if they make up the theory, and then they are the only people who can tell you if somebody has gone too far against their made-up theory. not congress not the people voters elected that can restrain the president it's the court and only the supreme court that's 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 john roberts of the supreme court has always been about aggregating as much power to himself and court as he possibly can. >> you said the spresident doe not have ethe legal authority t fire whoever he wants whenever he wants, but he and elon musk

have been making the argument that the people being fired and the federal government are unelected bureaucracy that we are trying to do restore democracy by getting rid of these people and yes that president should have the right to fire people that are not on board with his policies. >> first of all i don't want to hear anything from you elon musk. i voted many times in my life never once have i seen you elon musk name e on the ballot anybo pulled a lever for him he needs to shut the hell up. if he is, 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's called the cabinet. as we think about the cabinet think about the idea the president can fire or higher anybody wants we know that's not true. because we know even for his own cabinet even for the people he puts 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 and the secretary of defense the attorney general, all these people have to be confirmed by the senate.the senate doesn't want to confirm somebody than the president can't have that person in that position, hello mr. matt gates i hope you are well wherever you are in florida. but from a basic understanding of american civics that what trump and musk are arguing for his movably wrong and inconsistent with american law.

>> elon musk is a special advisor to the president the president can have whoever he really advising him who he likes they are not going to confirm. >> elon musk is at so i'm saying he cannot talk to me about being an unelected official holding power. sure the president could have he could talk to whoever he wants. maybe to put his body musk on the payroll. his daughter ivanka on the payroll. that's fine you can talk to whoever .he wants. but there is an entire government he represents there is an entire government he works for and he does not have on accountable power to hire and fire everything a person in the federal government. he just doesn't. i just proved to you why he doesn't. the idea that just because you're the president you can reach all the way down into

lowly civil-service person working in the gao and fire them because they happen to be black, that's insane and that's against the entire thrust of american civics not even law just the civic structure , of h the country works this is and how it's supposed to work. trump is claiming authority that no other president has had and you know he's asking for something 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's always done. it's not always done it isn't how it's supposed to work and there's a really good reason for why it's not supposed to work because we like to think of the president as one official among many. he has a specific job unique job an important job but he's not the only person who has authority in the federal government.

>> justice correspondent and columnist with the nation if you would like to join the conversation you can, the numbers are republicans 20274 don't act on president trump, ellie has said he will abide by court orders that parts of his agenda. i do you see that is likely and what happens if that doesn't happen. >> he's already lying. is not abiding by court orders against him right now. the federal funding freeze pause that he put on has already been blocked by multiple courts from temporary restraining orders around the country and yet the money is not gone. if you go to organizations that are expecting federal checks they will tell you in many

cases the money has not been turned back on this is a clear example of trump lying to everybody's face. 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's not abiding by it. abc. do i think he will abide by future court orders? hell, i don't know he's not abiding by this one. maybe he will abide by another one he finds more amenable to him. here's my real issue, whatever trump ssays is going to abide that has so far been no indication he will enforce court orders against his owner elon musk. we haven't seen any indication about all. there is no suggestion at all that trump will impose a court order against elon musk telling

him to rein it in. that's what i most worried about. but that's because i already know trump is lying about whether or not he himself will follow court orders because he is not following a court order right now. >> i want to play for you white house secretary caroline lovett when she was responding to people who say that trump actions are causing a constitutional crisis and then i will get your response. >> before i take questions i would like to address an extremely dishonest narrative we've seen emerging over the past few days. many in this room have been fear mongering the american people into believing there is a constitutional crisis taking place here at the white house. i've been hearing those words a lot lately. in fact, the real constitutional crisis was taking place within our judicial branch district court judges and liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally

block president trumps basic authority. we believe the judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law. and issued at least 12 injunctions against this administration in the past 14 days. often without citing any evidence or grounds for the lawsuits. this is nothing more the continuation of the weaponization of justice against president trump you to put newsflash to the level of judges supporting obstruction of effort 77 million americans voted to elect this president. each injunction is abuse of the rule of law and 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 trumps policies can be enacted. >> your reaction to that.

>> if i may translate that it's basically oh my god every judge i don't like as a constitutional crisis. that's what she said. she is obviously wrong, it's a well-established part of american law that when you do something, you can be sued. the lawsuit will go to a judge and the judge will make a ruling in 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 like that's the inversion that levitt is trying to gaslight people. it was very simple to have a court order and follow it that's normal and easy. he's trying to say the judges

doing their job is somehow a constitutional problem. she's basically saying the republicans have been saying this for weeks. that somehow means that because he won the majority of the vote he gets to do whatever he wants. and again, that's just not how it works. that's not how law works that' not how civic works yes the president was elected, congratulations on all your success donald latrump but he i still part of the system he is still part of the legal structure he's not above that legal structure. there are e limitations on what he can do no matter how many people want him to do it. in many cases he's exceeding his constitutional and legal

authority. >> liberals generally think the supreme court can't get worse because it's already stacked 6 ã3 with a republican appointees over democratic appointees. i read that to remind people of course it can get worse it can always get worse. making it permanent for the lifetime of my natural life and everybody reeling the programs natural life. that's because the two oldest

justices on the supreme court are both republican. both of those men retire in the next four years trump will have the opportunity to replace them with those men but 30 years younger. at some level i can't harmonize 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 trump is in possession of alito retired to become the first president since fdr to appoint not just supreme court justices but majority of the supreme court of these retirement will be appointed by trump.

that's what keeps me up at nit. >> if i'm not mistaken biotin did not follow court orders either giving forgiveness of millions of dollars in school loans. >> david omaira you are wrong biotin did follow court order he said he could enter the program okay i can't do it that way i'm going to try some other way. just because he got an adverse court order doesn't mean he gave up on the program. he try to find another legal way to achieve his and. trump did that last time. first muslim ban overruled by the court the second overruled by the court did trump say i'm gonna stop banning muslims? no he did not. he tried again and 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 versus m hawaii but that's a problem with supreme court not donald trump donald trump when he was trying to immorally ban muslims from coming into the country did it the right way. joe biden when he was trying to release student debt ryrelief d it the right way. what trump is doing now by ignoring court orders ordering him to restore the funding he illegally and unconstitutionally took away, that is different in kind than anything biden did anything trump did the first time and 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's so openly defied a court order. >> let's talk to caller starting with maria and atlanta, democrat, good morning maria. >> good morning.

i'm a big time follower of you. i want to ask did trump get on tv say all kind of stuff is talking about how elon musk help him swing states and how he went over there worked on his computer and he said i never heard none of the media pick it up again. think he was trying to say the election was stolen. >> no i don't. go out touch grass it will get into your soul if you listen to that man too much.

as opposed to the specific allegation. trump is not the rhetorically cautious individual i do not think he was trying to say helped him steal the election. i think that democrats sometimes roll into it's easy to believe something fishing have to happen hathere people knew who trump was i don't think elon musk helped him steal anything i think now that he's empowered elon musk is helping him do some serious

illegal activity. that's a different problem. >> let's talk to mark a republican in clifton park new york, good morning. >> good morning. trump won the election fair and square. if he has a mandate to govern conservatively. is allowed to govern conservatively for at least the next two years until the midterm in the next four years until republican successor has to run again. trump is given the latitude because he won the election by majority by the popular vote and by a landslide electoral vote. >> we agree that trump won fairly i don't get the he has a mandate but that's work who cares. he won fairly he's allowed to govern as a conservative and conservatives are allowed to like the crazy things that he

does. what is not allowed to do is illegal stuff! surely we can agree he's not allowed d to do illegal things. is not allowed to do unconstitutional things. surely we can agree on that. while you and i might disagree on what's legal or constitutional, surely we can agree that a federal judge is the right person, is the person should be able to tell us what's legal and what's unconstitutional and what's constitutional. can we not agree that trump well yes he's allowed to govern conservatively he's not allowed to break the law! >> mark are you still there? >> i'm still here. what trump is doing is the right thing. he's doing the right thing. >> is that the legal thing? who is supposed to decide whether or not it's the legal

thing? is nobody supposed to decide whether it's a legal thing? is nyanything trump says legal are we back to nixon, when the president does it it's not illegal. is that the rabest you can get mark? or do you think that maybe somebody who's not the president should have a say in whether or not what the president is doing is legal or illegal acts let's give mark a chance, go ahead what do mayou think? >> i think what trump is doing is great right now he's cutting waste. >> that's not t the question. as far as legality. >> he has a large latitude and we have to find out because obviously the court orders and judges blocking things i think they will eventually work their way through the process. >> all right. got a. ellie must all visit posting here on x i'm re you

are aware of by vice president vance who says this. if a judge tried to command the attorney neral and how to use her discreti as a prosecutor that's also illegal. judges aren't thallowed to control the judges power. >> i was a harvard jd vance went to gail feeling really good about my chances. if jd vance was right the dobbs decision canceling the right to abortion was illegitimate and legal space and joe biden has should've personally performed abortions for the last four years. if jd vance was right. of course jd vance is not right sounds like an idiot when he says that because the idea that judges the third branch of government doesn't have a

legitimate check on the power of the other two branches legislative branch and executive branch, flies in the face of basic american civics. i have many problems with the supreme court and how it wields power i could argue the supreme court has too much power i argued that in the past i'm in favor of what the scholars call jurisdiction stripping which is a way for congress to limit, i'm all for reform of the supreme court i do not think this is the greatest body under. it's a legitimate art of american government and acting like they cannot say what is legal or not what is constitutional or not is just not something that we do in this country. we understand the judges have a role in that the rest of us have to follow the judge's role if you don't like it there are many opportunities to reform to

supreme court that ani've liste and many articles in the nation that jd vance is welcome to read the id the supreme court has no authority on trump just because he is the president face of basic american law basic american civics. jd vance knows that. he's saying what he saying because it's in his best political interest to lick trump's boots even if it flies in the face e of all law and reason and civics. >> lewis and penn talk new jersey, independent, : good morning. >> good morning. this reminds me of when trump was in first term we had all the judges blocking him from building the wall. politics and judges shouldn't be robbed of politics that's what's going on here. another thing, he's the executive you can fire anybody he wants. >> if so,, he can, maybe you

want him to be able to, but because you watch the apprentice you want to hear him say you're fired!

one of the other callers brought up student debt relief if you think that judges are playing politics to , think politics that hurts trump really? because i seem to recall 㦠>> what they did the biden too. >> do think judges should have as much power. >> it's politics. that's llall. >> want to ask you about an article you wrote for the nation with the headline "trump's attacks on dei a green light for the government to discriminate" i want you to explain that because critics of dei say it is discrimination because it's preferring people of diverse races women over men that kind of thing. what is your response to that? >> dei was invented by white people, white men, it was

invented by white men to try to comply with the civil rights act and the 14th amendment of the constitution. dei was the white male creation to comply with constitutional law. what diverse people if that's what we are calling us today, what wwomen have been asking f has not been dei they been asking for fair and equal employment opportunities. they been asking for the applications of the equality clause in the 14th amendment in the application of the civil rights act in hiring. that's it. it was white guys that make sure we have the higher black people and women and latinos and what have you, that was their solution. now that they don't like the solution anymore, that's fine. it's constitutional, dei is a policy. it's constitutional and legal

to change policy. trump has every authority he might need to change the policy of the united states. my question is always, what are you going to do instead? because you still have to comply with the civil rights act he still have to comply with the 14th amended. what are you going to do instead? what are you going to do instead to make sure you are still in compliance with the civil rights act and the 14th amendment and there they never have an answer. >> i think what they would say is we are just going to hire the most qualified person for each job, therefore we are in compliance. >> is that's what's happening? dei was invited because that wasn't happening, they weren't able to hire the most qualified person for every job they were only able to hire the widest mail person for every job.

now that dei is essentially gone, is that what we see, the are they hiring the most qualified people for every job? do we see them only firing the least qualified people for every job? of course no we don't see that. in your last segment and armstrong williams there was a caller who specifically asked that man does he think every single person who works in the federal government who wis of color is a dei hire and was on qualify for their job and armstrong said of course not that would be ridiculous. of course he said and i'm quoting him "most people got their job on merit" which is an interesting statement because there firing everybody. they are firing people not based on merit not based on qualification, not based on their actual work history there firing people because they are black. that's what violates the constitution and that is what violates the law. nobody has a problem ããi

wouldn't say it that way -- it's legal for you to get rid of ddi policies what's illegal is to fire people just because they happen to be black at work. it's ridiculous to fire everybody who's been hired under a dei program without any decipherment of their actual work performance their actual dare i say merits for the job. they're not doing it that way there firing y.everybody who happens to be black in government. that's what's illegal that's what the problem is. >> let's hear from jennifer in midlothian virginia. >> good morning. thank niyou for taking the time to listen to our calls. my question is piggybacking on what you're talking about with dei, i intend to understand we know there is no statute for taxation without representation necessarily but what legal recourse to those of who fall within the marginalized groups, i.e. african american, disabled, lgbtq, all the things labeled as marginalized communities, to push back on

everything being dismantled in the name of dei. if we are federal taxpayers if we are ndpaying our money but every book that represents us as being banned from schools every program that potentially may create spaces and access for these individuals, special education all the same, we are paying our money this is an economic issue, citizens and residents of whatever state you are in, commonwealth of virginia, commonwealth of massachusetts, how can we push back and say my tax dollars are going to everybody but my community. how is that legal? we don't have any recourse because they're doing it in a discriminatory way just like you said under the disguise of that's considered dei we just don't want it we also have title vi title vii and all these rights are supposed to have access to and we are paying our money and not getting the services and access and empowerment we should be

getting. >> it is legal i believe it's illegal, you name the statute i believe what they are doing is illegal under the civil rights act. that's not because they're changing the dei policy is not required by the civil rights act of fairness is equality is. so when they willy-nilly fire everybody for the crime of being black fire everybody for the crime of being a woman without individualized assessment of their merit then i believe that's violating civil rights act and they should catch a lawsuit. once they catch the lawsuit i know lewis is still out there waving us to the court, but when they do catch the lawsuit that goes to the supreme court this my read on the six republican judges as they don't think the civil rights should be constitutional in the first

place. they already have gotten through the g1955 civil rights voting-- i don't think the lawsuit that trump deserves catch because the way he's doing it is illegal. i don't know it's going to work at the supreme court. to jennifer's question, was the request? the recourse is the recourse that the people always have. truffles elected by majority of americans and the only take that power away are the majority of americans. activating voting convincing people personally have started to boycott market. i vote my wallet as well target specifically because targets for on lmy community we like y here, put your products on our

shelves. target is basically jerry maguire, tom cruise and jerry mcguire, we love black people! except for now rgtrump is in charge and we hate people ãã target deserves to not have my dollars at this moment. doing what i can with my wallet and doing my what i can with my feet doing well my voice we all have to do that. in the words of kermit the frog dogs and cats and muppets and chickens. >> good morning, can you hear me? >> go right ahead. >> i have a question, biden didn't do nothing except for stay on vacation most of the time i hear you people calling and badmouthing trump and what he's doing but are we gonna try

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. it's a witchhunt starting all over. this person you got on your show this morning if they are so smart and think trump is doing wrong why are they president? why don't they get off their lazy butt. >> all right let's get a response. >> i will fight trump with everything i have. i will never yield to that makãb i apologize my will do everything in my small power to fight this man and what he is

trying to do to my country. >> but his supporters are saying that's exactly the problem that you are fighting for no rreason. the only reason the cases have been dismissed against him 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 president was placed squarely above the law by his handpicked supreme court justice he most recently we've been talking about his racist actions with de dei he's going white south africans to live as refugees in the countries while expelling black and brown actual refugees living here now he's trying to overturn the 14th amendment and strip away birth right citizenship from

people who been born american and those of the reasons i can think of to oppose him off the top of my head. >> you have a book coming out next month called "bad law:10 popular laws ruining america" give us one of those a real brief explanation. >> let's go with voting registration all voting registration should be renounced. voting registration does not help keep our election safe all it does dois decrease participation in our elections. the first chapter of the book i have an argument for how voter eligibility requirements are in fact necessary but once you meet the eligibility requirements you should be automatically registered to vote in the haregistration shou be what's called portable that means when you move you are still register the registration follows you you don't have to chase registration. people i think it's a radical idea i like to point out to people that is the way they do

it in most of the rest of the functional democracies in the world. that's how they do it in england, and france, argentina, australia, that's how they do it everywhere else. we are the slow people. we are the people who have not caught up with the 21st century by still doing registration as a case-by-case basis instead of having automatic or mandatory registration for all eligible voters and if we had that i wonder if mark 77 million people who voted for trump i wonder if that number would be enough for him. >> dave and lynchburg virginia wants to ended on a positive note he said you suggested what keeps you up at night conversely, what gives gyou hope. >>. [laughter] >> i'm sure you can come up with something. >> i got kids. i have two kids 12 and nine you have little boys. .. littl