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delivered it to every customer and 10g platform and we are offering the fastest most reliable network. decades of dedication, decades of delivering, decades ahead. >> mediacom along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. wallach, a senior fele american enterprise institute and the author of the book why congress. welcome to the program. start by telling us about your background and your areas of expertise. guest: i'm a political scientist who studies american politics, particularly our constitutional system, our policymaking system and the separation of powers. over the last seven or eight years i have mostly focused on studying congress because i am

concerned that congress is in some ways the part of our government that is having the most trouble and because congress has troubles we get a lot of problems passing laws that are legitimate that the whole american people -- there is so much stress on a presidential elections and it strains our political system. host: you're a senior fellow at aei. does that mean you have a conservative point of view? guest: i think of myself as a center-right person. i am unusually concerned about process and the way we do things. not just a particular set of priorities. host: let's talk about the speech tonight the president will be giving. what are you looking for in terms of how president trump defines his role and his powers? guest: i think president trump and this second term has been very clear he thinks he won a huge victory, a mandate from the

american people and that gives him pretty much entitles them to do whatever he thinks is right. of course the president takes an oath to take care of that the laws are faithfully executed. sometimes president trump seems to think that when he finds laws inconvenient or bad they do not apply. i wonder if he will say anything on that score to reassure those of us who are worried they are playing fast and loose with the law in this new administration? i expect president trump to revert to form as a showman. he will tout his accomplishments, he will say we have seen more good things happen in the last six weeks than ever before in american history. host: there was a posting on x, where president trump wrote "he who saves his country does not violate any law."

that is attributed to napoleon, who crowned himself emperor. what was your reaction when you saw that? guest: trump is the master troll. he knows how to provoke reactions and he can always say i was just kidding around, i was just trying to get a rise out of my opponents. it is crazy for the president of the united states, a constitutional republic, to be favorably citing napoleon bonaparte, who made himself emperor and ended the republic in france and converted it to an empire and went trying to conquer the whole of europe. that is a crazy thing for a president of the united states to be favorably quoting on social media. i do consider myself successfully trolled. it did get a rise out of me. that is not the kind of country

america is supposed to be. we are a country where the law is king. there is no other king. we do not elect a king. a president is bound to be an officer of the law. host: tell us about unitary executive theory. what does that mean and where does it come from? guest: there is a question about how the executive branch ought to be organized. we have literally millions of people who are employed in the executive branch of our government today. that is quite a contrast from the beginnings of our country where there were just a few hundred in 1789. the question is how much do we need to have it be so the president as the boss at the top of this pyramid is literally responsible for everything that happens in the executive branch and has the ability to hire and fire as he sees fit?

the unitary executive theory says the constitution makes the president's sole head of the executive branch and there is not room for independence within the executive branch. independent agencies, which we have had for many decades are suspicious. we think why are they independent? why don't the answer to the democratically elected president? president trump and his supporters have leaned very hard into the unitary executive theory to justify why the president needs to have direct control over every part of the government. they have taken it even farther in suggesting anything the president says goes. the unitary executive theory does not necessarily say. host: philip wallach is our guest, author of the book "why congress?" if you would like to join our conversation. start calling you now. democrats (202) 748-8000,

republicans (202) 748-8001, (202) 748-8002 and independents (202) 748-8002. where does that theory leave congress? guest: the executive branch is one thing and congress is another thing. congress is the article one branch of government. it does not get its power from the president, it gets its power from the people. congress is meant to be the preeminent branch of our government that makes the big decisions. they are the ones who make the law and the president is supposed to be executing the law. that ought to give congress pride of place. it is clear congress in recent years has marginalized itself. members of congress, you will see them begging the president to do things. you could just make a law but instead you're going around the lawmaking process and sing the president is the one who is supposed to make all the

policies and all of the decisions. as a member of congress the most effective thing i can do is bend to the presidency or. -- is bend the president's ear. that is a dangerous shift for congress that suggests it is subordinate. host: do you think the power of executive had already been expanding in the past, even before the current time? guest: i think it is a long upward trajectory. not always steady. after watergate congress eased back a lot of powers. there have been times in congress has shown it can stand up for itself. in the 21st century especially we have seen very assertive presidents. you had barack obama say when congress is not doing what i want i have my pen and my phone and i can do a lot of policymaking just by those by ordering people to do things in the executive.

trump has fit into this upward trajectory but i think it is fair to say the second trump administration is making the most aggressive claims of any administration we have ever seen. host: you published a commentary with the title "the rule of law has seen better days." explain what you mean by that and if you think there are laws being broken right now. guest: i think it is clear that there are. some of them are detailed, not likely to be things the ordinary american is experiencing directly. there is a question about the funding of research labs. congress clearly set out a formula that it wanted. it had a disagreement with the first trump administration so it clearly put this into law. the second trump administration says sorry we are giving less for overhead, it does not matter that the losses otherwise. there are little things like that. that is an important policy but

something most people will not notice. then there is the question of the civil service laws and how the federal employment is structured and what kind of procedures you have to go through to shut down an agency. usaid is established by law. the president has made it sound like nevertheless he can just disappear it. host: under unitary executive theory that all branch belongs to him so he could shut down agency if he chose to? guest: the president is charged with taking care that the laws are faithfully executed and those are good laws on the books. the president has to have direct lines of control through the executive branch under unitary executive theory. traditionally they do not have the power to just disregard the law. another place where this will come up as this question of impoundment. when congress passes spending laws is the president required

to spend up to the amount congress has said or does the president have an inherent power to say actually i don't want to spend as much on this, that is just a ceiling for how much i could spend? president nixon made some very aggressive claims about how he could impound funds if he thought the policy was bad. president trump seems to be moving in that direction although he has not formally made any claim of that yet. host:he impoundment control act of 1974 requires the president to spend appprted money unless he obtains congressional approval within 45 days not to disburse the funds. has that ever happened? guest: yes. many presidents since the passage of that act have successfully gotten rescissions. you rescind the spending that was originally in the appropriations laws.

it does require going to congress and working with members of congress to pass those bills. certainly easier for the president to just say i can do this on my own. since the big clashes with nixon in the 1970's no president has gone outside of that framework to say i have a strong impoundment power. president trump looks like he may. host: let's start with callers. mary on the republican line in texas. caller: go ahead -- hello. host: go ahead. caller: i am mary smith and i, from a long line of democrats and i voted for obama and biden but i had a friend who was very politically astute or meet that biden was pro-abortion up to the ninth month and i'm a pro-life person so i made a 180 and became a republican. then i started watching newsmax

and fox nation and i became a conservative republican and i will be watching the president tonight. i appreciate your show very much. host: here is carol in illinois. line for democrats. are you there? caller: thank you for taking my call. i am very concerned that all of our relatives died in the past to have our u.s. constitutional rights. congress is not stepping up and doing their job. what can we do to get congress up doing their job? instead of taking away from the people and giving it all to the oligarchs. it does not hurt them but it hurts the american people. thank you very much. host: what do you think? guest: thanks for the question.

there are some complicated reasons why congress is shirking its responsibilities in our time. part of it is the change in the media environment. members of congress can reach a huge crowd of people on social media and get rewards from those kinds of interactions, including funds from all around the country. that incentivizes them the sort of spectacle rather than the hard work of policymaking. i think a lot of our members of congress today need to remember their job is to be a lawmaker and really figure out how they can get together with all of the other members who come from all around the country, work through the countries difficult problems and figure out compromises we can all live with. if we do that we end up with laws and policies that are

acceptable, broadly acceptable and that can endure and will not snap back and forth when the control of the white house changes hands. the way we have it now where so many members of congress are just cheerleading or jeering the president depending on whether their party is in control, we get a kind of whiplash. that is not healthy for our country. host: here is stephanie in south carolina. independent line. good morning. caller: i am a veteran and i'm calling because i'm concerned about the documents seized by the fbi when they raided trump's house, the documents he stole during his first term. i am reading in the washington post and they are saying those documents were returned to his house. who is keeping an eye on that and wide to those documents need to be at his house? i will be watching his speech

tonight because i do not hear anybody reporting on this and i will be watching the speech for clues as to why he needs those documents at his house. the same documents that he stole before. thank you. host: not very related to the topic but you have any comment? guest: i would say i do not know so much about the details of where the documents are today but it does seem that the caller is right that people have moved on from this issue. trump is the president now and he has security clearance for anything and everything. i think it has become a nonissue. host: here is carol, a republican in pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. speaking to mr. wallach's point the whiplash we need checks and balances in congressional procedures. we have a seesaw effect that occurs when one party is in

power. the fact that the other party has no rights to bring things to the floor is unhealthy for our congress. joe manchin has rightly said that 50% of the people are centrist and the way our system has evolved, it is just going whiplash between radical left and radical right. guest: i think carol for that comment. i very much agree that the way we organize the procedures in both the house and the senate today really cuts down on our members ability to work things out and look for bipartisan compromise where they can find them. we have very leader dominated institutions today relative to most of the history of congress. the top partisan leaders have a

very tight control over the agenda and we have a very cramped lawmaking process. we do not often see those to the grindstone work in the committees leading to bipartisan bills that then get brought to the floor where other members have a chance to offer amendments. that has become very uncommon in our time. that process of lawmaking is good for building compromises we can all live with. when we try to do anything to our top partisan leaders they tend to think about how things look for the next elections, which again does not always motivate them to think about how can we calm things down. host: supreme court justice sonya sotomayor was speaking last month in florida and she was asked about the continued relevance of checks and balances

and the power of congress to appropriate funding. i will play portion and then get your response. [video clip] >> our founders believed they had created -- and they have -- created free incredible checks and balances. the woman who asked, who said to we have a monarchy or something else and franklin's response was a republic. our founders were hellbent on ensuring we did not have a monarchy. the first way they thought of that was to give congress the power of the purse. because that is an incredible power. they gave the presidency the power of the military. that is also -- that means not just armed forces but law enforcement, which is an

incredible obligation of a president. they gave the courts the power to interpret. we have to do it by persuasion. we have to make it clear to society, to the president, to the congress, to the people that we are doing things based on law and the constitution as we are interpreting it fairly. our goodwill or our power is the power of reason. most people would consider that a soft power. is the most powerful of all of them. money can be taken away by congress. they give it and they can take it away. a president has four years and he or she could be removed.

those things are ephemeral in that sense of it. court decisions stand, whether one particular person chooses to abide by them or not, it does not change the foundation that it is still a court order that someone will respect at some point. host: what you think? guest: i share the justices love for that benjamin franklin quotation when asked what kind of government have you made coming out of the constitutional convention he said a republic, if you can keep it. it is always the responsibility of the american people to make sure our government remains responsive to us and does not get out of our control.

i think the justice did a good job outlining the different spheres of each of the branches. i will say it is controversial. exactly where the executive power ends in exactly how far court decisions can go. she suggests that supreme court decisions are the most powerful thing because they last until they are overturned. there is a view that has periodically popped up in american history called departmental is that says judges get to decide cases and that is it. everyone else is bound to follow the decisions they make in particular cases but they do not have to treat everything the court says as having great value. they can keep pushing.

you see some signs the current trump administration has a view like that and wants to narrowly limit how it will read the supreme court rulings. host: do you think the supreme court will decide all of these questions as far as the power of doge, their ability to fire federal workers, the power of the presidency? host: there are dozens -- guest: there are dozens of lawsuits playing out and lawsuits take time. we are only a few weeks into this administration. lawsuits play out over course of months and years. i think many of them will end up in the supreme court. a lot of action plays out while the judicial process is folding. host: gym in bakersfield, california is asking that when you think the president disregard or ignores court orders that that by definition is a constitutional crisis?

guest: i think crisis depends on how things play out. is disregarding something most people would find unimportant a crisis? i don't know. host: but if it is a court order. guest: the other question is whether they pretend they are complying and then are not doing what is ordered. i think if they openly said we do not have to follow what the court says, that would be maximally aggressive and would lead to a question of whether the president has any limits on what he can do or if he can just ignore a court of law that says he is not following the law. host: here is doug in florida. independent. caller: i just have a question to ask for general understanding.

congress has the budget and they appropriate money to whatever situation might be. the money is then given or passed the executive branch to execute that. congress does not look line by line for every single item in which that department is spending money or allocating the money, however it should be called. what authority does the executive branch have to determine what individual items within that appropriation should be spent in what way? guest: thanks for the question. it is a really subtle question and you are right that it is kind of complicated. the money gets appropriated by congress and then it is in different accounts that are managed by the department of the treasury, but ultimately tied to

different departments within the government. the government moves money around to execute its program responsibilities. congress has intentionally given the executive branch quite a lot of flexibility in how it moves money around between these different accounts because it thinks that is necessary to deal with the realities of a complicated world. i should say does congress continue to keep track of things line by line? they really do. the gao which was originally created as an accounting office is now called the accountability office is responsible for auditing the books of the executive branch and reporting back to congress. congress does have the capacity to keep track of the way money is moving around in the executive branch. that said, when this new

administration starts making things happen really fast it is fair to ask whether congress has a good grasp over what is happening. here is charlene in california a democrat. >> i want to say it's hard for either of the branches to work together because they are attempting to operate out of the spirit of fear. they are afraid. mr. trump has a lot of people that support him that are not -- does not have the country's unity and progress for all in their best interest between the wrestlers the brow boys, the 1,600 that were let out of prison or jail wherever they were. between all of them most people

would be afraid to do their job too. but i hope that we have enough people at the top that know jesus and know the lord and know the creator and know that he is the boss and not trump and not biden and not nobody else, and i hope they do their job for the betterment of the people. >> phil? i think that is a great comment, charlene. i think we need our lawmakers to remember that they take an oath to the constitution and they have a responsibility to their constituent who sent them to washington and the whole country. there are a lot of people that think the other side is so bad that compromising would some how be suspicious or treasono us and

that is a country we can't if we have a country with functioning politics. even if we disagree with each other we have to work with each other and figure out where we can come to agreements and go from there. >> rich is a republican from north carolina. >> thank you. first i guess is a comment. it appears to me there has not been any fact yet of president trump violating a court order or a decision from the supreme court. i recall the activity of mr. biden his predecessor with student loan forriveness and a d utter disregard. and that prompts two other questions from the commentary this morning. regarding employment oversight on the federal employee workforce. if that is not a function of the

executive branch of government then i fail to see whose it would be. those are the ones who are to make sure that the money that is spent on them is appropriately spent and not excessively spent and the people are being productive in their work to serve the american taxpayer. the last thing that relates to a question relates to disruption because there are things that i see in the news that could be disruptions in the president's address to congress tonight, i would welcome your comments. >> -- thanks for those questions they are good ones. i wrote about biden's student loan policies and i crit critid the way he went around congress.

i think that was troubling the way that he stretched legal powers in ways that ultimately the supreme court repiewdated. i don't think you are right to say that he disregarded what the court said. he most certainly shutdown the particular program that the court said was unlawful and then he went ahead and tried to find other ways of doing student loan relief that would be lawful. i don't see that as openly disregarding the court decision. now you talk about federal employees and controlling them, if that is not an executive function, what is? i think that makes a lot of sense, but nevertheless it's a very huge workforce set up in these different agencies. these agencies are creatures of laws we have developed a civil service system where laws say we

have to deal with federal employees. we want a high quality workforce that doesn't merely do what the top brass say they should, but are devoted of doing their jobs right and are going to keep doing them from one administration to the next. we want a non-political civil service. and we have laws in place to ensure that is the case. trump harkens back to andrew jackson and the spoil system that thinks that everyone in the executive branch ought to be answering to the president but that is not the law we have in place. finally you asked about possible disruptions in the speech tonight to the democrats. i think that would be a huge gift to the president. i think that is what he hopes will happen he is very lucky with his enemies mr. trump, that

is one of his great political talents. getting people to make a spectacle is just the kind of thing he can sell to his supporters as a justification of the way he is conducting himself. >> hi phillip, i appreciate the opportunity to speak to you. and i was glad to hear you mention that the law is the final authority in our country. it begs the question if the power is resting with the individuals that delegate that authority to various levels through representation, those representatives in the congress are responsible for making the laws. and the executive branch is responsible for making these laws and there are local police

forces and where does the responsibility lie when the laws are not consistently and uniformly enforced by the represented bodies? >> yeah. so when the law doesn't seem to be making sense in practice, what are we supposed to do about that if the executive branch doesn't seem to be applying the law in a consistent way? it's a great question. i think the judiciary has a role in trying to order consistent conduct this is the right way to interpret this law and it needs to be applied fairly in all situations. i think ultimately, congress has to look after it's own laws. if it finds the executive branch is not executing the laws that it has passed that ought to be offensive to congress as a institution. and congress has all kinds of tools too look after it's own interest. the most important one being the

power of the purse. it can defund the executive branch. it can throw the president out of the white house it is it real--if it really wanted to. it has a lot of power to say the last say. congress has been a little passive and really likely to minimize it's own responsibility in recent years. so when that happens and you have laws that don't seem to be carry the out uniformly, it's a fair question. is there really any recourse? >> this is angela a democrat in lancaster, ohio, good morning angela. angela are you there in lancaster? here is lynn in charlotte north carolina, a republican good morning. >> good morning. i hope everyone there is doing well this morning. hey i have a couple of comments about i always watch the

washington journal every morning. you know what a shame that the democrats can't get on board and recognize that we're $37 trillion in debt. and this goes back to there was clips of clinton saying, oh, we need to audit, we need to get the debt under control and there were clips of obama and there clips of the biden administration and no one addressed it. and now trump is trying to address it. america could literally go bankrupt and we could be in a lot of trouble. so trump is taking a lot of flack for trying to straighten the united states out. we have a debt here to pay. and no one has the -- you can not

keep supporting a never ending war. i feel sorry for the ukrainians you have to have a peace deal there. i understand that, you know, you have got to have the best interest of the american's at heart whether you are a democrat or a republican or an independent. america first, whether you are a trump fan or not, you need to think about this $37 trillion of debt so we can continue to enjoy our freedom, thank you. >> thanks, so much, lynn, for your comments. i'm in full agreement about the seriousness about our debt problem. $37 quadrillion in debt as you say. what are we doing about it? trump says by getting elon musk

slash parts of the government that is going to fix it. i'm sorry the math doesn't end up. that is not where the government spending is going. i believe personnel costs are 8 percent and most of that is military. you can't cut your way to a balanced budget just by throwing out some federal employees or cutting waste and fraud and abuse. much as i wish that was the case. if elon musk manages to do it i would be thrilled. i would be so happy to be wrong. that is not where the federal spending goes it goes on these big programs. mid care and -- e and medicaid. if you want to shrink the budget deficit and get the debt under control you have to find a way to get those programs under control. i don't know if rums are on thee

on the way to do is that. i agree with the rhetoric about the need to get the debt under control, i'm not sure that the current republican party is on the way to doing it not withstanding president trump claiming that he is on the way to balancing the budget. i don't see it. >> valerie in indiana, line for democrats. good morning. >> good morning, i thank you very much to what you just said just now to that lady. it can't be done. not the way he wants to do it. i was just wondering after looking at the two idiots with a gentlemen the other day it was so embarrassing and it really put our country in a down position. and my question is, is there anyway to get rid of this

president through dereliction of duty or unfit? >> well, valerie, there are two ways under the constitution to remove a president one is impeachment which means high crimes and misdemeanors. we saw that didn't happen in trump's first term inspite of two attempts by the democratic house of representatives and there is the 25th amendment and you get the cabinet together to say that the president is unfit to hold office because of physical or mental disability. that is not happening any time soon and you still need congress to go along with that. the truth is that president

trump has a lot of support in his party and strong support from republicans that would have to change dramatically to have a chance of removing him from office. right now it's not in the cards. >> william in burlington, north carolina is asking you on text. would you say identity politics and a 2 party system are more the problem overall. >> we have had a two party system for much of our political history and we find ways for it to work. parties are coalitions, they are not all people that agree on the same ideas. there is always internal dissension within parties, internal disagreements that have to be worked out. that is true about the republican party today. but in some of his moods president trump makes it seem

like disagreeing with him is an unhealthy act. that is not the way the two parties need to function in our system. identity policy can be a real poison for our system if people think that certain people's identity makes them suspect, makes them so we can't work with them. basically, if i see my group as sort of opposed to your group then what are we going to compromise on? if people think of themselves in those terms we're sunk. i don't think most americans do though. even those that feel a strong feeling of identity in different racial or ethic groups. i think they feel they are americans and can work with other americans in good faith. >> all

>> the washington journal, a live forum to discuss politics and public policy. from washington to across the cub. coming up wednesday morning, we get your reaction to president donald trump's speech to congress. and the administration with the authors and we learn of accomplishments and setbacks and

how terms affected their presidency and the nation. saturday the first 100 days of gerald ford's presidency and took over after watergate's investigation and gerald ford said our long national nightmare is over and then made the controversial decision to pardon nixon. president ford tried to tackle high inflation, energy issues and draft avoiders. watch our series "first 100 days" saturday on c-span 2. >> the canadian prime minister justin trudeau announced new tariffs on u.s. products because of trump's tariffs on american imports. a look now at his remarks. so did the canadian response.