really what it comes down to. is that people feel that in order for somebody that doesn't look like me, somebody that doesn't feel the same way, somebody that feels that the america that our parents felt that they were going to get and that never really existed truthfully, that it's going to change. and it's the fear of change, fear that we're not going to get something that we thought we should have gotten, fear that we're not going to see the people that look like us living next door to us. that we're going to lose something. but you know what, the american dream isn't a finite thing. in my mind. in my humble opinion. and everybody can get what they want and not lose what they think they're going to get. and it's that fear that's driving everybody right now. host: all right, jason. and this is rita, also in new york. line for democrats. rita? you there? caller: yes, i'm here. host: go ahead.

caller: ok. >> you can watch the program in full on a website, c-span.org. now to our discussion of president trump's recent executive actions hosted by the university of chicago's institute of politics. live coverage on c-span. >> moderating this discussion today is the iop director heidi heitkamp. she served in the u.s. senate from north dakota and also served as north dakota's attorney general. please note the professor will have to leave early so if you have questions during the q&a, go there first. of course as usual, silence your cell phones. when it is time for the q&a, mike will be pacing the audience. we will give all priority questions to students. finally, please make sure to check out upcoming iop events including david hogg, activism in the balance. and friday, february 28, the

student events committee will host an event called "sanctuary or stomping grounds: chicago in the age of trump." join me in giving a warm welcome to our esteemed panel. [applause] heidi: thank you, and thanks for coming out. the genesis of this was really a lot of discussion about the angst that is going on across the country. and the division that we are seeing across the country. and want to start with an icebreaker to all three of our panelists. "the wall street journal" last week, or maybe earlier this week, i read so much of this stuff, basically said that take a deep breath, everybody calm down, this is not a constitutional crisis, this is an administrative transition, and that yes, there are things that even "the wall street journal" would admit are probably unconstitutional, but

it is not cap it doesn't rise to the level of a crisis. we are going to start with my great friend dick durbin. are we in a constitutional crisis, senator durbin? sen. durbin: we are damn close. have to be blunt and honest with you. i look at the situation, i'm an optimistic person -- i don't think you can be in politics and not be optimistic. but we are facing a scenario which i don't think anybody really envisioned. in 2016 when trump was elected it was a surprise to him as much as everybody else. this time around they were prepared for it and they been executing the plan. remember, you could recall the time he picked his first cabinet, trump 1, it was a funny exercise. this man can be secretary of state -- look at, him he dresses up so nicely.

now we live in a situation where everything has been carefully planned and orchestrated, project 2025. and the intensity of trump's change, pace of change, is part of the strategy. this is flooding the zone, as they call it. you can't keep up with it. you literally cannot keep up with it. we were up all night with budget trying to figure that out, and he was announcing that he was now going to take over the post office and eliminate home rule in the district of columbia. i was just last night. [laughter] god only knows what he said this morning. i just want to say quickly -- i know the professor has to leave, so i will be brief as a senator can be. [laughter] seven days ago, he junked the foreign policy of the united states for the last 75 years. he tossed nato over the fence

and said "i will deal with putin directly" on the war in ukraine and many other issues. my heart skipped a beat. my mother came to illinois as an immigrant. i spent a lot of my career focusing on those baltic nations. i love them, and i'm worried to death about their future. that is going on in the context of the transition with trump. heidi: professor, what do you think? >> i try to differentiate between three different things. when is things that are really potentially bad policy, things that might change the country in a worse way but are things that the president gets to do and the reason elections have consequences. there is a lot of that going on, i want to belittle that. as a constitutional lawyer, the next level, summer unconstitutional, some will change the way we see the structure of the constitution. he is going to win some of those cases in the courts come he is going to lose some of those cases in the courts.

those are also a big deal. in the third level, which we haven't reached yet, i agree with a senator, the true constitutional breakdown can where we see the president disobeying final orders of the courts or refusing as you stand down after his term is over. this refusing to stand down after his term is over. we are damn close to those things. we haven't hit those yet, we have to register that we haven't hit those yet, but we have to be ready for the greater possibility heidi: heidi:. i would argue back that when you tweet "i'm the final arbitrator of the law," that's a shot across the bow in that direction. matt, jennifer sings your praises, saying you are as nerdy as they nerd when it comes to the federal courts. having met the arguments and watch to this litigation, do you find the argument of constitutional crisis persuasive? >> well, here is what the

administration is telling judges in their filings, which for the most part has been fairly sensible legal arguments. but then there is what the administration is saying outside of court about the courts as a whole. i missed the " wall street journal" peace. i would be curious to know, did they run it before or after the president of the united states tweeted "he who saves his country does not violate any law"? was it before or after that? heidi: i think it was before that. mattathias: because that is a pretty grave statement. it is also a bit vague. it could sort of be, as you suggested, a shot across the bow for this third level that professor baude was talking about. another -- this is just a scenario that comes to mind, a sort of statement for the type of judge that president trump

may in the future be seeking to appoint. he appointed about a quarter of the federal judiciary during his first term. if you have a critical mass of judges who believed that he who saves his country does not violate any law, that would close the gap between what is legal according to our system of governance and the president being above the law. those become the same thing if enough judges agree with it. is that a constitutional crisis? i think you could argue either way. heidi: when i think about this, the scenario that has been set up -- you hear that he who saves his country doesn't violate the law, we have executive orders that presuppose we are in crisis. there is this kind of laying out of the table of we are in an existential threat in the united states, therefore we have to use extraordinary power to kind of

think about how we rectify the situation, whether that is in foreign policy, whether that is in domestic policy, the border in particular comes to mind because one of the first executive orders was in fact declaring a crisis at the border. now the question becomes for so many of the students -- i met with a group of students this morning who i think calibrated my thinking, because we sit back and we think this isn't affecting everyone equally. one student this morning basically said that is one degree of separation. pretty much every person he knew actually had a direct story about the effect of these decisions on individuals, whether it was a family member, whether it was a student pursuing a phd who now doesn't think that position is going to be available. the question becomes, i think,

for so many of our citizens who are watching this who may not be persuaded we are in a constitutional crisis, but also are persuaded that the role of citizenship is incredibly important at a time like this, and so i think the first question that i would have for you, dick, is what should citizens be doing right now? here is a whole group of students here who are here on very short notice because they care about the country, but they want to know, what is my role as a citizen. sen. durbin: it's interesting, heidi, you played this role yourself. i like to measure what is going on by just instincts after a lifetime in politics. interesting things are happening. i go through the airports of chicago now and total strangers walk up to me and say, "thank you." i think that's interesting, because there also rallies by

indivisible saying durbin, got louder and angrier and stop being mr. nice guy. that is literally what the signs are saying. there is a range of emotions here. i would say from where i am sitting, the pace and velocity of the change that is taking place is overwhelming a lot of people. so damn much has happened, and we are not even five weeks out at this point, and think what he's done. i will throw out a few words and you associate as you wish -- greenland, panama canal, 51st state. the list goes on and on. what i'm saying to you is the grandiosity of this man cannot be overstated, and the pace of change cannot be overstated. and to say to the average person, what am i supposed to do about this, there are lots of things you can do.

you can carry a sign, you can speak to your colleagues, you can prepare for the next election. nothing is going to stop it from happening now. is going to happen. it will take something like court review to have any kind of serious effort to slow him down. heidi: let's turn to court review. you and i had a nice conversation upstairs about is he going to win more than he loses. there is a lot of -- for those of you who are lawyers or thinking about going to law school, there is an old thing you form shop. there is a lot of former shopping looking for that favorable judge that will issue the order. it is almost a public-relations ploy more than anything else because those orders can be overturned, overturned by the circuit court. but how do you see the litigation right now, professor baude? you laid out some categories, but in terms of what do you see as the most egregious executive

order that is currently being challenged in court, and what might surprise our students and our folks here, what might surprise them that it's ok constitutionally, in your judgment? william: i think most egregious is the order trying to revoke birthright citizenship. the constitution said a person who is born in the united states and subject to the jurisdiction our citizens. there is no chance the supreme court is going to uphold most or all of the executive orders trump is trying to issue. i think he knows that, his lawyers probably know that. i think some of the behavior around impoundment of a federal funds is not going to survive. this is more complicated, where you have to go to law school to learn the details of the impoundment control act, the budget rider. but some of those things are not going to survive. on the other hand, some of the things he has done trying to eliminate so-called independent agencies, exercise much more

direct white house control over the securities and exchange commission, the federal trade commission, national labor relations board, he is going to win those cases. heidi: you think so, even though they are independent agencies? william: the supreme court has already indicated it think the president has the executive power to be in charge of the executive branch. it is not a coincidence that the attorney general has teeth these cases up.-- teed these cases up, she thinks she can win. sen. durbin: can i mention one thing in the dillinger case, timely as well? i want to give you insight into something, heidi, i think as part of the calculation. in the first term of trump, he approved 234 new federal judges. that was a record number. and he put three on the supreme court, for god sake. a record that occurred.

then came joe biden, who said i want to bring a different face to the federal judiciary, i want to see more public defenders, more women, more minorities, exactly what dei is all about. i was chairman of the judiciary committee, and trump had234 in 4 years, we had235 in 4 years. why is that significant, who cares? that is one fourth of the federal judiciary every four years. one fourth of it. some of the major cases you are hearing are coming before judges from the work of the judiciary committee and biden that see the world a little differently than traditional trump judges. heidi: matt, we want to turn to you. you have been examining all of these cases. this is your responsibility as a reporter with "the new york times." do you agree with professor baude that most of these, a lot of these the president seems

likely to win moving forward? mattathias: i'm not a constitutional lawyer, i'm not a jd. i am more of an article to specialist, only been -- article ii specialist, only covering the quotes for yarn half. i will --the courts for a year and half. i think i agree with professor baude on the firings and control of independent agencies. i think there is a lot of case law in terms of the court' dispositions that the administration can book some wins. ardently the weakest thing the administration has done so far legally speaking would be the omb memo budget freeze. that is one place where at least that i am aware of that they backed off. the money is still frozen, but no longer are they claiming to the court that they have the authority under the omb memo to freeze it. what they are now saying is that

the same money is being frozen because the recipients of the money are not complying with the applicable laws regulation,s, and terms. they say we are acting under our pre-existing authority before the e.o., not defending the legality of the e.o. it is not a retreat on the ground, but it is a retreat from the initial argument was constitutionally legit. unless i'm missing something in the filings, i don't think they are claiming to have impoundment power that they didn't have before on the basis of the io memo. that one got pretty weedy. i have a question for professor baude. i hear what you're saying about trying to shoehorn a revision to birthright citizenship through the words "subject to the jurisdiction of," with the concepts of domicile and allegiance that are not in the constitution.

is it true that the supreme court has never actually made a ruling on whether the children of people who are on u.s. soil and do not have legal overturning the president. something i want to hear from professor baude about why i am wrong if i am. william: when the concept was enacted the -- when the 14th was enacted the concept of illegal immigration did not exist. heidi: remember he is an

originalist. william: it dealt with something that is technically distinguishable. it is not a case where we have ironclad precedent. there is a footnote in the case that says illegal immigrants are also subject to the jurisdiction . this is going to come down to the courts view of this term in the constitution jurisdiction and there has been a lot of scholarship. jurisdiction is a technical word they use in law school a lot. the idea, i think this is what the court will say, is that people like diplomats or even enemy soldiers who are on u.s. soil, but they are not subject to the u.s. government. diplomatic immunity, the law of war. that is not the way undocumented immigration works. they are subject to all of our laws. if they are caught by law enforcement, subjected to the various laws, subject to our jurisdiction in a very ordinary

sense. i wouldn't be surprised if one or two supreme court justices tries to find the running room matt is describing. sen. durbin: let me guess. [laughter] mattathias: haven't we already seen some judges in the pacific court of appeals try to draw a link in their opinions between invasion and undocumented? william: judge ho will say the president has to clear the border crisis to be an invasion, and therefore people who come across the border are in a sense an invading army. the order goes much broader than that, frankly. given that theory would invalidate most of the order. but i don't think the court is going to buy that theory. heidi: i don't want this to be just about birthright citizenship because we have not talked about article ii. we have not talked about article i, dickk. people ask me all the time, when is congress going to intervene, when is congress going to assert their prerogative. i say don't hold your breath.

don't hold your breath. give us some hope -- [laughter] convince me that i'm wrong that congress will see a constitutional responsibility to step up, like they did -- i was bragging that when i was your age, i did a paper on the budget and contact. this is very old precedent, when i was in college. that was in response to richard nixon, imperial presidency, because nixon did a lot of this activity and congress stepped in fairly quickly after richard nixon and said whoa whoa whoa, we still have the power of the purse. where is congress right now in asserting its responsibility to basically set policy for the federal government? sen. durbin: the majority party is largely

you think to yourself, how could you possibly give this man a 10-year term, he is director of the fbi, and fbi directors come see us as whistleblowers and say do something, he is destroying this agency. there is only one political person in the fbi, the director. all the rest of us have been career employees that is what

the fbi is all about. so what is happening when we come up for a vote? we reached out to seven different republican senators in a variety of ways. it wasn't me personally in most of these cases. we ended up with two ladies in the senate on the republican side, lisa murkowski and susan collins could we needed one mor -- lisa murkowski and susan collins. we needed one more, 51-49 cashed two more, really. it makes me worried about the republicans. they are scared to death not just about donald trump, but we haven't mentioned the copresident at this point, elon musk, who can literally call and say if you don't vote this, i guarantee you will have 100 million for a primary opponent to challenge you. $100 million to him is nothing he can do that. he did as much of the last election.

heidi: so how does a citizen than invoke the responsibility, professor baude, of article i? i voted for my congressional representatives, i want them to run the country, they are not doing it. do i have standing to assert article one power as a citizen in the court? william: in the courts, no. as a citizen you have standing on your own rights. people whose citizenship is being revoked, whose funding is being lost, they are suing. the way our government works is we elect them to congress and we have to hope they do their job, and if they don't, we have another election in a couple years. heidi: i mean, so kind of an unsatisfying answer. [laughter] sen. durbin: i want to say a word, a hopeful word. ultimately this plays out to one

man, chief justice john roberts. he has got to decide at some point that things are getting away from us. and he has at least i think the power to put together five people in the court to move us in the right direction. whether he will, i can't say. but if he does and asserts the rights of the courts to say the executive branch has gone too far, the question is will the executive branch hear it, will they pay any attention to it. the only reason that is possible is if a handful of republicans say enough. we cannot let this constitutional crisis go forward. we have to respect all three articles in the way they play against one another. heidi: i want to take us back where we started from. there are a lot of authors out there either in social media or articles who are really comparing this in a broader international setting, this move

towards autocracy, this move towards the strong man -- let's admit it, we're mainly looking at strongmen. the strongman kind of analogy. how do you put where we are right now -- this is for all three of you -- in the context of what's happening globally, and how is america -- we grew up believing we were the city on the help, that people-- city on the hill, the people ascribed to our form of government, imperfect as it is. how does the retraction we have right now in terms of this balance of power that the constitution has set up, how is that having an effect globally? >> i think the political trends are very much global. a lot of it has turned to figures with anger about inflation.

the thing that might make us different is that we have a different government with a very strong judiciary that has a track record of sometimes stopping the president from doing things. what will happen if the courts issue an order to the president, he does not listen to it? the president does not have an army either. the army obeys the president because the constitution says he is the commander-in-chief. will everybody is still follow the president? that would be a real constitutional crisis. i hope we do not find out. sen. durbin: mark milley was the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under president trump became a friend of mine. we went to dinner and talk from time to time and two or three times i said that if it comes down to an order from the commander-in-chief versus the constitution, what would be your judgment? he said the constitution as far

as he was concerned. that is why he is on the enemy list of kash patel and other things. i worry about the enforcement and where they will come down. there are those who may not see at the same way. heidi: what do you think, matt? matt: on the international question? heidi: just in general about where we see, i think there is a sense of and you read it. we are at this spot where we will ignore it with a government that is not accountable to the people when you look at the filings that you are looking at every day, how much of that has weaved through the kind of

warning to the courts that this is a mammoth kind of overwhelming, how do you see the courts responding to the kind of argument? matt: i want to understand what you see the argument as. heidi: the argument is that if we don't stop him now, we will reach a tipping point and it will be too late. matt: i see the argument. it has stopped him from doing what exactly now. i came into the courts think about them one way and i think about them a different way now. this is a sideways way of answer your question. the courts are still there. they are still independent. they have had a lot of lawsuits

but they have the capacity for dealing with these lawsuits. the executive is fast and the judiciary is slow but they get it done. all of america have to start thinking about the courts in a different way. particularly after jobs, people started looking at the court as just these courts -- these guys are bought and paid for. we know how they will rule beforehand if we know the party and the appointing president. unless we are collectively willing to take a leap of faith that there is a certain amount of legitimacy to what the third branch is doing, no one will accept the outcome. i think we have to just throw our arms around a little bit and not assume how we know they will

rule. senator durbin is right about the emerging preeminence of john roberts as the final counter we ight to the executive branch. there is a lot of stuff about the president cannot be held criminally liable for performing his duties. that is very different from saying that courts cannot find him to be civilly illegal. the president does not get to do whatever he wants under any circumstance. you cannot charge him criminally for a core constitutional act. when i read it, the supreme court is reserving a lot of power, curating these three buckets of presidential behavior and saying this is how we will think about these things in the future. we don't know what the courts

will do and we have to give them a little bit of grace and space to work through a pretty unprecedented situation. heidi: that is an excellent answer. it always seems like the courts are like please god, congress, please do your job. they made impeachment a focal point of presidential behavior. there is this kind of duck that the judiciary instinct did not get involved in politics and i think the question is are you getting involved in politics or are you basically interpreting the law? matt: i might put the same set of facts a little bit differently from the judiciary side. you look at president trump. he has been elected twice. in my view legitimately both

times. i don't think anyone thought it was a blunt force situation. he was elected twice by the people. congress chose not to impeach him twice. there are a lot of checks and balances into the constitution. you might think it is good or bad. donald trump passed those checks. you heard the idea on the left that marek and jack smith has the job of -- merrick garland and jack smith have the job of taking him off the board. that might not have the most desirable outcome given there are more fundamental systems that forever -- that for whatever reason have decided not to intervene. i have sympathy for the courts i guess. just like you were saying, i think you made a decent point. i don't want to miss what you were saying either. heidi: i want you all to be

thinking about your questions. you have a great panel here. people who are in the mix who are thinking about this every day, who are responsible in dick 's case for providing a response. most of you are citizens of the great state of illinois. he represents you. this is your opportunity to say thank you like you would in the airport or to say, what are you doing. let's start there. >> hi. thank you. i lived in chicago my whole life. my dad still raves about the capital tour we took 10 years ago with your office. my name is elly. i am a first year here. my question is for any of you. with a document as complex as the constitution, no president probably has ever followed it perfectly. where do you draw the line

between unconstitutional acts and a constitutional crisis? william: every presidential administration some people say it is a constitutional crisis. every president does something that is unconstitutional. i draw the line between ordinary disputes about the constitution and the disputes that go to the fundamental question of who decides and our basic stability of government. those are things like the courts get to decide cases and elections decide. those are very thin rails. if we lose those, we are done. sen. durbin: i agree. heidi: you are just going to agree with him? sen. durbin: it is the rule of law. at the end of the day, if the court rules against your branch, you respect the court's opinion.

it is a tricky question. i have sent plenty of letters to the chief justice on the ethics of the court. i have tried not to cross the line. you may have thinks i have. having said those things about the court and the ethics of some of the justices, in the end, they are the legitimate people holding the power of the constitution and if they rule for or against the president, we have to respect it. heidi: do you want to weigh in? matt: i have a quick yes. i think it is hard to improve on what the professor said about the thin rails. i will for the first amendment on the list as something that is very unusual if you look at other countries. what i am allowed to do in my work without fear of legal reprisal is very unusual internationally. it is a huge boon to the united states business-wise with respect to silicon valley. the first amendment is under

significant legal peril in ways it has not been in a while. some of the case files are not that old. what we are allowed to do is part of the system too and i would add that as another thin rail that if it starts to move, he would be in serious trouble. heidi: thanks for bringing that up because i think that is critically important. the sullivan decision that would change the way we look at the media. i think that is critical. >> thank you all for being here. i'm in my second year of college. my question is for senator durbin. i appreciate all the work you have done your distinguished career as well as senator schumer. i want to point out i feel democratic congressional leadership is very underwater right now even among democrats. a lot of it is because we feel

like you are not doing enough. i have also noticed that democrats, particularly in the house, have failed to elevate a lot of the anger -- younger more powerful voices, specifically jasmine crockett and aoc. what are the best strategies to fight back and do you think that involves elevating more younger, powerful voices in democratic leadership? sen. durbin: two things i hope you appreciate. we are in the minority. it is one thing to have aspirations confronting trump. it is another thing not to have the votes. we have a couple of possibilities of finding her way into the situation for example, if they fail the majority in the house, then we sit down and work on a bipartisan basis. a filibuster may be one application to get us back into the game.

people say we are underwater. we are under votes. we don't have enough votes, number one. number two, of the young people and their impact and their message, heidy and i grew up in an era, well i grew up in an era where network television was a source of news. 7% of the american people get their news from network television sources. you know the world out there. the social media world. the influences. i spent this past week meeting influencers. what the hell is an influencer? i am learning. you take emily see for for example. extremely talented. a powerful voice. she does not have to call the democratic national committee. she is part of the conversation and part of the leadership for my party. and i am glad she is. i would not say that they are being held back. many of them are charging to the front of the democrats being

left in the desk. heidi: another question. because she is wearing a packers shirt. >> sorry. i am from lake county. do not take this to heart. i am alissa. i am a third year in college. this has been such an insightful conversation. earlier today at our meeting we were talking about how is there is this general feeling of anxiety among college students and graduate students and people getting job offers from federal agencies taking away because they don't exist anymore. phd candidates learning that they no longer have the funding and the funding cannot take anymore students. we are all wondering what can we do right now ? what is the best way to ease this feeling that it is not going away frankly and everyone is scared.

sen. durbin: first, if your dream is to embark on a federal career, this may not be the right moment. things are in flux totally. a lot of agencies are never expected, the fbi is a classic example of the situation. that is the frustration that you feel and i feel. i want to do something now. people want me to do something now. but there is nothing that makes a significant difference to me at this point and the pace of change we are seeing coming out of this administration. we will have our time of reckoning. they will be a lot of pain before it. to say that there is one bill we can introduce, one speech that we can give, one economic boycott that we can initiate that will change this is not realistic. william: one thing we have not talked about yet is federalism.

we have all of these state governments that do not just change hands. we have pritzker, the governor of illinois who gave a great stay the state address. we have students in law school who think the illinois general office is really important when it comes to that work. maybe we are originally thinking the department of justice but now they think there are other types of governance and that is a really important site of. heidi: i think it is really fair. there are a number of students on campus who want to support this administration, looking at opportunities to do that. we are at a point in our dialogue where we have never seen this radical of a change, even between and i was in office during the first trump administration. dick's right. we thought these were folks that

we know and they are not ideologues. that has changed. there are a lot of people who see opportunity in this cycle as well. maybe we come out stronger. but we need to think about, i would just say we need to think about what our role is as citizens, as the great founders of our constitution believe that the most important role in a representative democracy is the role of citizen and what does that look like. questions. >> thank you for being here. my name is justin taylor. i am a fourth year undergraduate student. when a president comes into office with control of the house and the senate, normally at least one chamber flips around midterms. my question is that is there any feeling among democrats that

maybe we will see them hold out until midterms and after that, kind of block trump and ride out the rest of his term? sen. durbin: let me be the first to say, trump's numbers are going down. elon musk's numbers are not anything to brag about. they are going down as well. those two titanic egos in the little ship called the presidency of the u.s. will have a mutiny on the hands -- on their hands. i cannot imagine them working together for long period of time. the numbers will change. the loyal opposition have a good reason for that. the notion that we are meeting all of these changes in government to give bigger tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country is poison to the republicans. they hate to acknowledge that. it is all we talked about yesterday. it is a potent issue that reflects reality. we have a lot of work to do before we start announcing for

reelection and the like. i think we have ground again. -- ground to gain. heidi: it would be a big mistake for the democratic party not to understand why they are not in power. and what was it about the messages that really resonate with the american public in terms of what they want their government to reflect, in terms of their values and their principles. if the democratic party does not learn the lessons that there is a reason for this, i think they will have missed an opportunity to recalibrate how they have a conversation with the american public. we are going to go to the back. i think that is fair. >> hi. i am elizabeth, a fourth year in

college. i think your conversation earlier about enforcement of federal court decisions and what to do if the president does not follow the court's decision brought me back to the cherokee cases and the president's decision back in 1831 not to follow the court's path. i am curious about whether you think that the -- if they are any action steps that we can take or pressure to place now to ameliorate the effects of that happening. heidi: maybe you can explain the cherokee cases. william: there was a series of rulings about the limits of state power over the cherokee nation that andrew jackson did not take any action to make sure that actually happened, did not take any action to stop them from going into the cherokee nation.

he supposedly say john marshall has made his decision. let him enforce it. that turns out to have been invented. it is a kind of think that andrew jackson might have said. the idea is the president was still sort of standing by. two things. even that was not defying a direct court order. there was not a order directly to andrew jackson to say back off, stop doing this. but this is an area of citizenship. this is an area where we have to have a widespread norm and expectation that if the word of the federal courts does not go, that is unacceptable on a fundamental level and we all have to believe it. matt: can i interject? if we had more class, i would ask you to do abraham lincoln next. i actually think there is something arguably dangerous about the ambiguity of the

messaging from articles from the white house right now about whether they will or they won't. in terms of obeying an order directly from the supreme court and we also have vance saying that judges cannot control the executive legitimate power. it begs the question what did he mean by legitimate. jd vance's from yale law school. i don't have a law degree. i think so it to go to the white house, a reporter, it could be me or my colleague, to get a direct answer to the question. i think rumsfeld is a great place to start. they had president bush saying we have to treat our guantanamo detainees a certain way. you have the court saying no, you have to do certain things in the process to abide by the geneva conventions and international law. then you have the bush people

saying ok. we will do that despite having special national security prerogatives. i would ask vice president jd vance with the bush administration have been within the constitutional rights to ignore rumsfeld and just do what it wanted at guantanamo bay, yes or no. that is the answer that we have not heard from the white house yet. what is their actual loyal to? creating uncertainty around that which has strategic benefit for them but it is important to pin down their operating theory of this. not just in court filings but with these strange tweaks. heidi: we will go over here. >> my name is lindsay. i am a second year in college. i want to go back to the question earlier about what can we do now specifically in the sense that a lot of us. about

lobbying is a really effective way to do this. i am not sure this will be as effective anymore. do you think we will see that idea challenged? i guess i am asking you to predict the future. matt: yogi berra once said it is hard to make predictions, especially about the future. i think a lot of the administrative state is still there. it is still doing important things. what you are seeing now is the supreme court does not need decisions like chevron to have a lot of important consequential authority. a lot of it just comes down to what is actually in the laws that congress wrote a long time ago. there are a bunch of rules and places where the administration has discretion. the questions will be convincing agents to use discretion for good rather than ill and to stop the agencies when they cross the lines. heidi: dick?

do you want to weigh in? chevron is a decision that says for god sake, congress, do your job. you will see more of that coming out of the court. >> my name is bernie. i am a three year in law school. i have been watching your decisions for a long time. thank you. my question is in the realm of foreign affairs. this has been an awful week to see the emboldening of vladimir putin and the alignment of zelensky and the lies that are being put out there. my biggest fear is we have a president who is emboldening putin. an emboldened pollutant goals and invades a native ally and president trump does not respond . it will be really hard for the courts to get involved in that.

i just do not really know what congress can do in response given that that is more of a passive response from trump that is wrong, it would be hard for something like the war powers to come into effect. i'm curious if you have any thoughts on what congress can do if trump refuses to affirmatively adhere to our responsibility as a nato ally. sen. durbin: in 1979, talk about ancient history, i visited the soviet union. i saw what looked like. i went into lithuania where my mother was born and i saw what the life looked like. i said to myself, these people will never get out from under communism. i was dead wrong. 25 years ago there was the emergence of the soviet republic as a separate independent democratic state.

one thing i could hope for is we could get them into nato and the nato alliance would stand by them. they are small, they are tiny for someone like vladimir putin. now between this and the president of the united states, they threw out five years of foreign policy. -- 75 years of foreign policy. 75 years of protecting us from the third world war. i don't know what the nato allies think we are doing. they will not be called into a conversation about resolving the situation in ukraine. they have sacrificed. poland started embracing these refugees from ukraine as an example and some of the other countries did so much to help. 46,000 lives were lost, ukrainians who have lost their lives defending their country and the president just announced that they somehow invaded themselves.

you think to yourself, what kind of madness is this? it is a madness that started with a bromance with vladimir putin and it continues. i don't know where the hell we are going here. i really cannot explain it. but i don't like the looks of it. heidi: just a follow up on that, would that be the breaking point with your colleagues in the senate if he did not honor our commitments under nato? sen. durbin: for some. roger wicker. mississippi senator, republican senator, who said as much on the floor last night. we had a symbolic vote on this issue and he made it clear that he is still loyal to ukraine. i do not know about the others. there are newcomers since they left the senate.

some have been around for a while and have good judgment on most issues. heidi: is there anything the courts can do? william: foreign affairs, the courts have taken a light hand. heidi: we have time for one more question. ok. someone is pointing. you had an advocate. >> thank you. my name is kate. i am a fourth year in college. i am one of the presidents of the college of democrats on campus. the question speaks to mine as well. a lot of young democrats have been feeling not just helpless but also this idea that the burden is on us to do something. maybe i am overly optimistic but i feel like at times i undercut my conservative and republican peers for their ability to grow

very concerned about these problems. this is for senator durbin. i would love if you can contextualize more about what those conversations look like when you are sitting with senator susan collins for example and you are trying to get her to listen to your facts and convince her. maybe if they are any lessons that we can apply within our own communities to try to diminish these partisan forces that are clouding common sense. sen. durbin: heidi knows what i am about to say is the truth. i have friends of mine who say i was watching c-span and you were sitting there talking to susan collins. she is the enemy. do not talk to her. yesterday, i talked to her and she voted as i hoped she would. there is a human side to this

aside from the political side. friends of mine said, i saw you on c-span and you were talking to susan collins. yesterday, the same is true with lindsey graham. what are you doing talking to lindsey graham? he plays golf with this guy. lindsey graham and i are working on section 230 on social media. we are doing that on a bipartisan basis. the point i'm trying to make is, keep important issues front and center. but don't give up on the human side of the equation. there are times when we can and should work with the other party to do things that are good for this country at the right moment. in terms of what you should do it the moment, and of course

students always ask that question, no doubt about it. i think senator durbin for operating on what, one hour of sleep? two hours of sleep? wants to hear from all of you. this is valuable. thank you so much. if you have only been studying the course for a year and a half i think you already have a law degree as far as i can tell. you are amazing. thank you so much. you want final words? sen durbin: i want 60 seconds for university of chicago moment. the reason i am sitting here today is because a professor in this university names paul douglas. he was an economics professor that ran for the senate in 1948. he was elected. i was an intern in his office last year, 1966, two two or

three things that were noteworthy. paul douglas sat on the city council in chicago. he was the one independent alderman and ran it for the primary to become u.s. senator. the day after he lost, he enlisted in the marine corps. he is the oldest recruit and a history of the marine corps. he was 50 years old. he went through training at parris island. he was gravely wounded in battle. he lost the use of his left arm. it was my first job in politics. 30 years later i was elected to a senate seas. there is a university of chicago story in my background.

this afternoon, c-span covers the conservative polital action conference with remarks from florida conessman byron donalds, housing and urban affairs secretary scott turner and others live starting at 3:15 p.m. eastern on c-span two, our free mobile video app c-span is now an c-span.org. >> this week to watch c-span's new members of commerce -- congress series where we speak with both republicans and democrats about their early lives, previous careers, families, and why they decided to run for office. tonight at 9:30 p.m. eastern our interviews include delaware democratic congresswoman sarah mcbride, the first openly transgender member of congress. >> from those first moments after his diagnosis and he and i knew how lucky we were. we knew how lucky and he was to have health insurance that would

allow him to get care that would hopefully save his life and we knew how lucky we will have to have flexibility with our jobs for him to focus on getting better and meet to focus on caring for him, loving him come up marrying him and eventually, when he found out his cancer with terminal, to walk him to his passing. i decided to run for office because i do not believe that in delaware, or in the united states on the -- in the wealthiest, most developed nation on earth that that ability to get care should be a matter of luck. it should be the law of the land. >> watch new members of congress all this week at 9:30 pm on c-span. saturdays, watch american history tv's series first 100 days with historians, authors, and through the c-span archives. we learned about accomplishments

and setbacks and how events impacted presidential terms and the nation up to the present day. saturday, the first 100 days of franklin roosevelt's presidency. at the height of the great depression roosevelt defeated herbert hoover in a landslide. in his inaugural speech the only does she said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. early in his terms are president called for a special session of congress to tackle the economic crisis. dozens of bills were passed to put people back to work and improve living conditions. franklin roosevelt later coined the phrase "first 100 days". watch "first 100 days." saturday on american history tv on c-span2. >> if you ever miss any of c-span's coverage, find it any time online at speeds -- c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting