for such colossal increase in immigration in this country. . >> i think he should talk to his leader. because net migration went through the roof under the last government, nearly one million, quadrupled. and who was cheering it on? the leader of the opposition. his constituents are ripe to be concerned about the loss of control by the last government. we are taking control and we will bring these numbers down, but the record is absolutely clear and it sits right there. >> that completes prime minister's questions. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> washington journal continues. host: joining us from new orleans, stephen griffin of tulane law school, a constitutional law professor here to talk about the president's use of executive power. professor griffin, thanks for your time. guest: no problem at all. i'm happy to be here. host: we have seen the president use his power for a little over a week. from that approach you have seen, what would you say is his approach to the use of executive power? guest: well, that's a pretty big question.

because there are several things going on at once. in one sense, president trump is using executive orders to establish the -- some of the themes and programs he talked about on the campaign. he's giving directives to executive agencies to sort of line them up along his policy objectives. and perhaps spark some action. but there are other executive actions that raise serious constitutional questions and/or our attempts to follow up on a lead. this is a theme i would like to introduce. a lead given to him by the supreme court. so, in some sense, the supreme court has teed up the power he's now exercising through executive orders. there are several categories there. some are more controversial than others.

host: that lead you talk about, is not connected to the supreme court case or the trump case connected to executive power in the united states? guest: i've had this -- sorry -- i've had this question but i am not talking about the executive immunity decisions. i would like to highlight the cases that are in every casebook that are called removal power. -- removal power cases. people have noticed that the president is doing some arguably unusual things as far as removals. what i don't think they have quite grasped the either direct connection between what the robbins court has been -- roberts court has been doing since roberts got there in 2005 and what president trump is following up on or pushing the envelope on. those are removal cases like the free enterprise fund case or the

seller law case in 2020. host: can you elaborate when it comes to removal cases, where has the president applied his power? guest: all right, so i also should have said that all of these cases were linked to the important concept, which we really started hearing about perhaps in the bush ii administration of the unitary executive. for quite a while, conservative legal thinkers, justice scalia on the court, and other people on the court, have been pushing the idea that the president really should be in sole control of the executive branch. when i talk about removals, you need to think power over the executive branch, president versus congress. and it can seem like a technical issue of who gets to fire whom. but the real issue, the underlying issue, is control. and power over direct power over

the executive branch. those decisions had to do with extending the reach of presidential authority to fire. for example, until the seller law decision, you can remove the head of the consumer finance protection board. both president trump and president biden availed themselves of the power. president trump did it again to get his own people in. but there are broader issues. broader issues having to do with so-called independent regulatory agencies that congress designed to be somewhat independent of presidential power. and also, a huge issue, control over civil service employees. and those are really big issues. and i am not sure they have been discussed that much, quite yet. host: we will continue on with our conversation with our guest. if you want to ask about the president's use of executive

power, stephen griffin joins us for that conversation. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. an independents, (202) 748-8002. -- and independents, (202) 748-8002. if you want to texas, (202) 748-8003 -- text us, (202) 748-8003. what has the court done as far as giving this type of power to the president? guest: i would characterize it this way. there was an easy balance in the law and an understanding, stemming from two early 20th century decisions. the myers decision in the 1920's, having to do with the post office of all things. and the humphrey's executor decision in 1935, about 90 years ago. the humphrey's executor decision has been mentioned in recent news stories.

the supreme court seemed to say the president cannot exercise removal authority and could not control what we would call independent regulatory agencies, such as the federal trade commission, the securities and exchange commission. and president trump's specific action that has to do with the equal opportunity employment commission. the eo ec. this is a thin layer of people in charge of operating these agencies where it has been designed in by congress that they should have fixed terms and can only be removed for cause. at the same time, everyone agreed on the basis of the myers decision that the president should have removal authority over cabinet level agencies and there has been no question about that. there is an uneasy compromise or line drawn between, for example,

cabinet level agencies and these independent regulatory commissions. starting in the 1980's, people associated with the reagan administration and justice scalia in particular started raising serious questions about this line and, in effect, embracing the unitary executive model announced in the myers decision. and they have been responsible for sort of a decades long campaign to get that removal authority at will, removal authority extended to the entire executive branch. and if that were to happen, that would indeed be big news. separately from that, there is the whole question of presidential authority over the civil service, which are lower-level employees which are protected. you see, it's not just about removal. it is about influence and control. and president trump, pretty

clearly, wants to control in a very direct sense, the entire executive branch of government. irrespective of laws passed by congress. that's the issue i would like to highlight. there arethere are other imports like birthright citizenship. i do not want to ignore those but this issue that i've talked about as we've seen got less attention. host: you probably get this question a lot specifically what the constitution says about executive power and why you think it has grown so much since then? guest: well. i will start with what i learned and where many books start which is article two of the constitution does not give a lot of detail about presidential power and it certainly does not give a lot of detail about the structure of the executive branch. that's really for congress to build out. that is the conflict. what is the limit of congress's

power to specifically organize the executive branch, versus you ask the source of the power. it's a famous gap in the constitution. the constitution has an appointments clause but it does not have a removal clause. but the people who have been advancing the unitary executive idea believe it is encapsulated in the very first sentence of article two which talks about vesting the executive power in the president. justice scalia argued in a case morrison versus olson, he lay down -- laid down a marker, he was a lonely dissent. saying this means all the executive power and what he meant is what chief justice taft talked about in the myers case about limited power removal even in the face of congressional statutes to the contrary. at least in separation of powers land that is a big conflict and

it has real-world implications. host: republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats 202-748-8000. independent, 202-748-8002. ron is in michigan, a democrats line. good morning, go ahead. >> good morning. in my opinion what trump is doing he is eliminating all supervisory roles the federal government had to safeguard -- we will just take social security and put elon musk in charge of going to the records of social security to eliminate people from social security and what that's can do is there going to eliminate people from social security and in the past we could call the federal government and get help, there will no longer be any help. so though go through with trumps and the billionaires forcing

them down our throats and there will be no more recourse. benefits social security will start and then they will go on to v.a. and medicare cuts and there will no longer be any recourse in the billionaires are in charge. he is taking control of the fbi and federal law enforcement agencies -- they are no longer in place. the only thing that stands in his way now is the military and he's got pete in there. so it's either fascism or fight. host: puts out a lot of scenarios. the fbi we saw a lot of removal within. does that fall within the president's power because it's not an outside board? you would know more than i. we're just a power fall on that front? guest: the new stories about the fbi often make it sound like an independent agency and these

confusions trip up a lot of people. similarly with stories about the food and drug administration. but these are not independent agencies. the fbi is inside the department of justice and that was commented on in the hearings on pam bondi for example. but there is another issue here when you are talking about the department of justice and i can perhaps talk a little bit about elon musk. the issue is there's been a post-watergate understanding that the department of justice should operate informally independently at arms length from the white house. president trump pretty clearly even from his first term does not have much time for that, does not believe in that in there is a connection between that and trump versus the united states, of the immunity

decision. because the supreme court in that case if they had been more mindful of what some of us regard as watergate precedents, the decision would not of come out that way. because nixon was clearly -- people thought it was possible certainly to indict nixon. i am sorry that's a little telegraphic but the point is the conservative legal thinkers including people on the board -- court, obviously don't have the same respect for the post-watergate precedents with respect to the fbi and the doj, as do the people in the trump administration and possibly on the supreme court as well. host: in kentucky, a republican line, this is george. caller: good morning. at what point would they say that a president has crossed the line? what would that line be and what exactly could they do to stop

him? as a disabled veteran i would like to know. guest: if this is about the possible interference with the payment systems i don't think there is enough details on why mr. mosk has asked for this permission to scrutinize what's called the bureau of fiscal service in the department of the treasury. i think we are at early days as far as whether that represents even something that president trump is interested in. but, in terms of the doj fbi angle, i think there's just a desire for more direct control and this is often been thought to be sort of a limiting case that no one would really be in favor of presidents directly controlling who gets prosecuted and who doesn't. but that may be challenged. another way for me to engage

with the question is is it really true that the supreme court would back up president trump on all of these removal questions. i am not saying it's guaranteed at all. i think the judiciary is going to be a check on president trump just like it was in the first term. people forget about that. but president trump lost a lot of the cases brought in court that the court was not a rubber stamp and i think that's important to say. host: i was going to ask you to elaborate the role the courts have about crossing a line that the viewer brought up, can you elaborate more on where you see the courts going even in these first tranche of executive orders. guest: to the extent that somehow teed up control the department of justice. i'm not quite sure how that would arise.

what i was trying to get across is the supreme court has kind of given trump whether he knows it or not, a green light to challenge the independence of these agencies i was talking about. as well as even possibly undermining the civil service and it is unclear just how far the court would let trump go and you can read the decisions that i just mentioned in a limited way that they're not interested in destroying the whole structure of independent agencies, but i think we have to face the fact that the roberts court gave a green light, sort of opened the door and president trump is walking through it. it's not to say he is going to win all the cases that i mentioned, but