>> democracy, it isn't just an idea. it's a process, a process shaped by leaders elected to the highest office and interested to a select few with guard its basic principles. it's where debates unfold, decisions are made at the nations course is charted. democracy in real time. this is your government at work. this is c-span giving you your democracy unfiltered. >> coming up a conversation about president trump impact on the judiciary with the panel of republican lawyers and ways of the law can be used to repeal policy decisions made during the biden administration. this assaulted by republican national lawyers association. -- this is hosted. [applause]

>> i guess i can just take my seat. in an effort of comedy i'm going to dethrone myself and just sit down. >> all right. thank you all for joining us and thanks to our panelists. my name is james rosen as you just heard on the chief washington correspondent for newsmax and author most recently of scalia, rise to great his 1936-1986 the first installment in a two-volume biography of the late justice. i feel compelled to make two announcements at the outset first, that where i ask a subject of practicing reporter to moderate an equivalent and for the equivalent democratic lawyers association i would be happy to do so under the same terms, and i can be reached through eric holder. the other announcement by to wish to make was and this one i will confide to you is one that

hope would engender some measure of empathy if not outright affection for your moderator and that is thatha i'm not a lawyer. as antonin scalia said in the first commencement address he gave in 1984, at the university of dayton, then a business of the lawyer is to take the imagination mystery romance and the duty outut of everything he touches. n for nothing, he said, that expression is sober as a judge rather than exciting as a judge. so i will try to dress myself more to the excitement than sobriety here today. we have an extraordinary panel with us as you know. and they are seated here, and let's get straight to it. carrie severino is a president gcn, and bear with me one moment. we with all our joint i should point out by a television crew so we also want to extend a a welcome to all those watching live on television right now, and who are also going to watch

on other platforms in the future. as i mentioned kerry is the presentt of gcn, really she nees no introduction at all in the script and none of our panelists do. she's a co-author with mollie hemingway the best-selling book justice on trial the capital confirmation and the future of the court and, of course, we all see kerry quoted widely in the news media across the ideological spectrum. jesse panuccio at the far end is a part of, a firm of some renowned. and previous he was the acting associate attorney general at the us department ofhe justice. he is af public member of the administered compass of the united states, a.k.a. and vice chair of the photo supreme court judicial nominating commission. and that in the center of our table we have as his body will known to many of you ilya shapiro, director of constitutional study at the manhattan institute and author most recently of lawless

miseducation of american elites. by way of redressing that starting right with his room of elites right here why don't we begin with kerry four-person opening remarks. >> we are sharing a microphone. in the name of comedy i was going to stand up so we all got to have the same thing but i'm in favor of a one having the same rules apply to both sides whether it's standing or sitting so i will continue to sit then in the name of comity. and actually think in the name of the rulehe of law which may e a theme that will run through this panel i want to talk about the judicial confirmation process and where we are in the sexes we've seen and what we learned and maybe what's coming forward, and departments of maintaining good judges for the rule of law so that everyone is on equal footing yet standing or

sitting, be a republican or democrat, we apply the same rules to president biden or obama as a due to a president trump and that's one of the important tasks of the judiciary going forward. everyone who will be familiar with how successful the last administration was with respect to judicial nominees trump came in to the white house with the most nominees any precedent since ronald reagan and maybe before that i think maybe had more than ronald reagan to get more vacancies available and he made good use of that. yet 234 judges confirmed including three supreme court justices in four years which is quite an accomplishment. that really wasn't entirely due to man. i think a lot of that has to do with the importance placed on that by the american people and mitch mcconnell and keeping justice scalia's cetaphil for the next president to fail but he did a good job moving forward and filling those seats as well. in the process also changed some

of the rules to make that confirmation process swifter. biden took advantage of that opportunity and did trump one better getting 235 judges confirmed during his term. it was frustrating to lose that little record. it's something we unfortunately of some of the thanks for that to a few of the senators who were spending more time in mar-a-lago during the lame-duck. back then voting on judicial nominations so that is an illustration of one of the themes i feel like i am constantly going back to when discussing judicial nominations, which is elections have consequences but it's not just the presidential election. it's also senatorial elections and that has a large impact on the makeup of our judiciary than we often care to admit. trump was widely applauded for

the quality of his nominees last time around, including from liberals people like -- who lamented the fact that obama was able to cast as many high-powered individuals for his judiciary. i think that also holds true in comparison to biden's nominees. while he outdid even raw numbers by one judge, obviously -- >> i think i would with that many more circuit judges and just one more overall. >> that's exactly right. you can bring that up. >> i'm hoping that is a friendly amendment. >> its writer in the notes. he only had one supreme court nominee, right? he only had 45 appellate nominees to trump's 5-4. so even on the numbers if you dig down biden didn't quite as well as trump but even more so

the quality of his nominees were not as high as trump. trump's nominees this we will only be posting the long-term are going toy be ones that will have a larger impact in terms of their ability to persuade other judges on their own circus come on the own courts and also cross circuit. we have to remember judges in one sense are one vote apiece in terms of cases but in a much larger sense they can have a lot of influence. it's important to pick the people who will have an influence. how do we get to a point starting in the 20th century when republicans were nominating people like earl warren or justice brennan and people like that america took place what we have a court that in just recent years has changed the face of law in terms of administrative law, overturning chevron, inhe terms of abortion law come in terms of the second amendment,

in terms of racial preferences with the harvard case. i could go on and on and on and everyone can remember the number of the dramatic shift that happen. i would say in broad strokes that's been first starting to focus on the right thing to nominating people who didn't just happen are after the name but understood originalism, textualism and the people who had experience doing so. we learn from the borg combination indeed have judge defended when is nominated come just in brilliant is enough. orrick was one of the most brilliant jurists at this time. that wasn't enough and that again goes to the point of the senate votes have consequences. the big difference between antonin scalia being virtually unanimously confirmed and robert bork not been confirmed was a shift in the senate. the democratic senators flexing their muscles and realizing we don't have to nominate people.

from souter with arne nominating people who have no record at least if you're republican is not a recipe for nominating and conservative. it's easy to do if a democrat whatever reason i think there's a lot of interesting speculation as to why that might be. the land underneath the supreme court bench tilts to the left we we don't know but it might be interesting to get contractors there to pick it up. it does seem to have an easier time vetting people. part of it is because of our understanding of originalism and the rule of law, if you are come have judicial philosophy that inherently is is the policy n i'll get to know is their policy and the political line of you have a sense of whether fall on things. if your judicial philosophy is much different and requires you to the hard work of looking at the cases come reading the law, analyzing the text and you're

hoping the person sets aside their personal policy preferences, then knowing what that persons position is safe other pro-life or pro-choice? i be 100 like and what you do not? that should answer the question for a republican nominee, but suffice it to say blank slates are not sufficient. on the thomas confirmation we learned that depth, can from it, confirmation would learn the depth to which the left will sink in terms of smear campaigns. duringur the 2000 we saw the senate flexing its muscles and bedard the filibuster was apparently a novel way to block judges but we also learned an important rule to keep in mind which is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and maybe that's the best way to address misuse of the senate in these processes as tutors, there were a lot of judges blocked in the filibuster including --

qualified for the position, and once essence the democrats started be on the receiving end of filibustering judges come there's a procedure will being deployed to get you can deploy it the other is a? would get rid of it and democrats got rid of that rule as it has that happened. you can see from the impact of trump's judicial nominees a long-standing nature of the courts and why this is so important that trump filled these steeds well, because if there's anything that characterizes the importance of judiciary in terms of making sure that the separation of powers is being respected, in being used as a weapon by both sides to try to slow and undermine what the president is doing in terms of his administration, and you can also see how quickly everything else that a president does can change.

executive orders are wonderful and quick to do and you can have maybe a quick start impact. however, i do not last more time than the president or at least a president of a similar party. they immediately will be switched around were as the judges are there of course for life. at this point we have 46 vacancies and, in fact, slightly more because there is at least one was just nominee for the sixth circuit. that's not officially a vacancy. that includes format if you include her appellate nominee. this is fewer judges judicial vacancies than any precedent since reagan. trump went from having the most to having the fewest. while he's still on track for about where he was and were most presidents are i think the lesson from the senate is there's no reason to get anymore time than humanly possible for

moving forward to getting people confirmed. it's exciting to see we've heard may be they trip there will be hearings this august june 4. that's excellent. i suggest this first panel of five judges that have nominated will be confirmed by the end of the august recess but you could only confirm judges who are as good as the 50th senator. currently, we're in a position where we have great senate ground as far as that's concerned. but every time i hear people concerned about how can we can, we've been having issues with this judge of that judgment was this poorly vetted? the our cases where bedding could've been in a whole lot better. in a lotco of cases it's hard to imagine that someone who could pass stronger vetting would make it through the senate. at the end of the day if you wants a stronger nominee, you

need to have a senate with the 50th about is about where you want your judicial nominee. maybe lisa murkowski isn't what you want your judicial nominee. there are definitely it will be senate pressure on that front as well. so i guess with that of hoping that we can move forward effectively, continue to have judges that will be looking at the law faithfully without, without bias on either side but except by system what the constitutional law actually say i think our country will be, have a positive movement toward the robot and will be able to continue pushing that forward and hopefully with continued solid nominees like the first slate of judicial nominees that trump came out, that will further embolden judges were considering taking senior status. this is an important moment for the trump administration i have great nominees out of the gate and hopefully getting them

confirmed effectively. that is what gives judges companies they're going to be replaced by some who is principled, serious and highly effective judge. >> thank you to carrie severino. [applause] >> if it was good to jump in it was about to be me because i wanted to demand the names of the senators who at mar-a-lago when they should've been voting. it may be goose and candidate maybe you've told us their names and also want with references to justice souter simply and in all of us here today join me in this so soon as we gather after his passing to extend our condolences to his family and on his distinguished service in the law. .. and i say that because

it would pursue on behalf of the >> trying to enjoin a democratic policy and-- our prompt for this, the title role of article three in our constitutional system. that's a broad prompt and can encompass a lot of topics, but i think it's a very important issue right now because in recent years, our judicial branch in this country has been asserting power to an extent and in a manner, frankly, to my life never before seen in our nation's history. specifically i'm referring to an issue, that i think is a problem-- >> we'll particular you live to capitol hill now where president trump is meeting with house republicans regarding his

tax and spending cuts proposal. live coverage. >> maybe i don't like or they're not going to get, but i think we're going to have tremendous-- we have tremendous talent. this man has done an incredible job as speaker. you know, we had a majority of one. we were one heart attack away from losing the house and now we have seven, and we won some elections and you probably noticed and we'll win a lot of elections. we have an economy that's roaring. we took out $5.1 billion. you take a look, 5.1 trillion, with a t not a b, and in the middle east investing more than that, going to be ultimately more than that, 180 wide bodied boeing aircraft, and they're spending money at levels that nobody's ever seen. usually a president goes for a trip and he loses money. he gives money. we went for a trip and we took out 5.1 trillion dollars, nobody has ever seen anything like it and that's just the

beginning. so, i think we're going to-- i think we're a very unified party. the senate is doing great. john thune is doing fantastic, a great guy and we're going to have a bill, the one big beautiful bill. i think the biggest bill ever passed and we've got to get it down. tremendous tax cuts for people and incentives and regulation cuts and you will of the regulations this are so horrible and now you find out what happened, because biden, look, it's a very sad thing that happened, but we are going to start looking into the whole thing who signed this legislation, who signed legislation opening our border. i don't think he knew. i think there's nobody that could want an open border, nobody and now we find out that it wasn't him, he auto penned it. who is operating the auto pen? this is a very serious thing. we had a president that didn't sign anything, he auto penned almost everything. he opened the borders of the united states of america, and i kept saying, who would do such a thing? allowing criminals to pour in

from all over the world, not just south america, all over the world, came from africa, asia, came from the congo. the prisons in the congress in africa, these are rough, rough people, the prisons from the congo are empty. you know where they are? they're in this country. who would sign this? nobody would sign it. no sane person would sign it. you know who signed it? radical left lunatics running our country and the auto pen signed it and they didn't want him and disappointed in getting him because they wanted bernie sanders, and then after about two weeks they said, wait a minute, this is a gift. he'll do anything. we are going to use the auto pen. and they used the auto pen and everything. he didn't approve this stuff because when joe biden was with it, he would never have approved it. you take a look, he would have never approved open borders. go ahead. >> are republicans grandstanding. >> a couple would grandstand

the alternative is 68% tax increase and you can blame the democrats for that and one or two grandstanders, we only have one or two, but we have tremendous support, but you'll have a 68% tax increase or you'll get a massive tax decrease. you'll get a tax cut, the likes of which we've never had before. this is bigger than any ronald reagan tax cut, it's even bigger than the tax cut that i gave because as you know, that's being extended and increased. so, this is the biggest tax cut in the history of our country, or you'll get a 68% tax increase. if that happens, i mean, what republican could vote for that to happen because they wouldn't be a republican much longer, they'd be knocked out so fast, but we're going up to the details. this is a-- i'm a cheerleader for this party and a cheerleader for the country. much more importantly, for the country, but i'm a cheerleader for the party and we are going to go up and i think we will

have a very good discussion. there are one or two points that people feel strongly about, but maybe not so-- >> on one of those points, do you think that-- as a benefit tax. >> we are going to look at one thing, we're not doing any cutting of anything meaningful. the only thing we're cutting is waste, fraud and abuse. with medicaid, waste fraud and abuse. there's tremendous waste fraud and abuse. there's -- we have illegal aliens that are multiple killers with multiple murder records getting medicaid. i don't think anybody minds if we cut that. the democrats are on the other hand are going to destroy it because they're going to leave these people on. we're cutting three things, waste, fraud and abuse. we're not changing medicaid and we're not changing medicare and we're not changing social security, and if i wanted to do those things i would have done it during my four years that we

were-- >> mr. president! (inaudible). >> well an interesting thing because the governors of new york, illinois, you know, the big jb, going nowhere, probably right now could be the worst governor m the in the country, but illinois and gavin newsom and they're the people that want this, all democrat states. you know, ronald reagan tried very hard to get this passed, was unable to do it the way we have it, where basically everybody is treated equally, he tried it so hard and never got it done always disappointed. we got it done and now people want to change it so we'll be talking about that, but the biggest beneficiary if we do that are governors from new york, illinois and california, and those governors are the ones that blew it because they weren't able to get it. so, i think we are going to be

explaining that these are all very blue states that i don't really believe that we had honest elections, i don't actually believe, i would have won california, new york, and i think i would have won illinois. i was talking to mike, again, i'm his biggest fan, i love this guy. he's the only guy that could have walked in with one, think of it, you can't be a guy like me and have a one majority. you have to be a guy like him, a nice person. he's very religious, he prays, he's a man of god, and so am i, but he's really to a new level, i will tell you. he is a great guy. they love him in louisiana and they love him in -- and the kind of guy somebody said, we want somebody -- if you put a certain personality in there, look at what he's gotten passed. just so you understand he's got this passed, too. i don't think there's anybody i could give you guys that is so tough you would run if you ever looked at him, if you ever saw

some of these guys you would not ask them questions you'd be afraid to. this guy did something that i don't think there's anybody that's more well-suited to be speaker of the house especially in a case like this. remember, we had a majority of one for six months and that was a very frightening thing because the democrats have really hurt our country. and we are going to go into very much-- remember what i said the auto pen. this government was illegally run for four years. thank you very much, everybody. thank you. (inaudible) >> you've been watching live coverage. we return now to our scheduled program and join it in progress. >> 1,000 federal district judges, that's active and senior together, wielding the same supremacy of the supreme court by stripping of other courts efficacy of their judgment. so in sum, simultaneously makes every single district court

supreme and every district court a potential nulty. some argue that nationwide injunctions are needed for uniformity and relief, this is the purpose of the class action system and the class action system has safeguards that ensure the appropriateness of the class wide relief, adequacy of representation, the rights of class members and the rights of the defendant. the class action also equalizes the litigation risk unlike the nationwide injunction, the results of a class action are as binding on the class as it is on the government. nonparty injunctions whistle past this entirely calibrated system regardless whether they have standing or meet the requirements of rule 23 and they permit the government no finality. the government has to run the table in every single case, potentially 1,000 of them. plaintiffs only have to win one time and they get the result of a class action without qualifying for a class action. the third problem with non-party relief flows directly

from the first two because these orders have no basis in law, because they affirmatively flout several legal norms in our history and because they cast aside congress' authority as said, the jurisdiction of inferior courts and authorities to determine how to apply lower court opinions, in the words of justice gorsuch, it's hard to see how a court ordering one of these orders could be acting in the role of resulting in controversies. far from deciding controversies between actual parties before the courts, judges issuing nonparty relief seem to be acting as counsels of revision and many of you remember what that was at the philadelphia convention, the founders proposed the ideas of a quote, judiciary ought to have an opportunity to have remonstrating on encroachments of the people before the laws take effect, they could cancel out. and that was rejected by the

founders and the role that these courts are now stepping into. and they envisioned the judiciary as the least dangerous branch of the political rights of the constitution, we've heard that before. hamilton reasoned in support of that idea, individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter, but he added a critical caveat, so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from the legislative, and when they range beyond granting relief to the individuals before them and make nationwide policy, they obliterate the distinction between courts of justice and the legislative and executive branches. the more life tenured judges act like policy makers, the less confidence the public will have in lower federal court. history has shown that the american people have a stubborn tendency to demand a say in the

rules that govern their lives. >> we'll take you live to capitol hill now where president trump is meeting with house republicans regarding his tax and spending cuts proposal. live coverage. >> we had a majority of one for a period of five months and he kept it together and we actually-- nobody else could have done that. he's done a fantastic job. we have a very, very unified party. remember, we had one and now we have seven. we won elections. we won elections, a lot of elections, and the economy is good. i just had my highest poll numbers ever, ever, and we had a trip to the middle east, 1.5 trillion dollar and and aircraft because of that trip and many other things. and the economy is doing great, the stock market is higher now than when i came into office and taking in hundreds of billions in tariff money and no inflation, they kept saying inflaying.

there is he no inflation, groceries are down. gasoline is way down, way down. everything is down. all energy costs are down, the-- i tell you to me, maybe the most respected thing, you saw the way they respected me between qatar and saudi arabia and uae probably the richest of their type nation, great places, unbelievable amounts of money, and they respect our country again. they were going to go to china. china was going to take over those countries, 100% they were dealing with china because they weren't treated right by the last administration and they have tremendous economic power. they have more money than anybody. we probably have more money, but we have other things. they are very, very-- they are very cash rich to put it mildly and they're spending 5.1 trillion, probably going to be 7 trillion by the time we stop. and somebody said, any other

president goes and spends money and i'm the only one that takes money back when you think about that, that's an interesting statement i never thought of it that way, but we have -- this is really just the -- we have a very unified house and very unified senate and mike is doing a phenomenal job as speaker and be there a long time and a man in the senator, thune, mr. thune is doing a great job. i've gotten to like him a lot and doing a fantastic job. between the two guys, very different personalities, actually in certain ways, but they are doing a fantastic job. i don't think the republican party has ever been so unified. it's become a much bigger party. we're winning the labor vote and we won the teamsters and we won that-- look how well we did with the automakers and by the way, the president-- the he said, you know how many

auto plants are built in this country because of the tariffs, three announced yesterday they're building. there's a revolution going on, a positive one in our country and i love it. we're doing really well. >> mr. president, the negotiations over now. >> which negotiation. >> over this bill. >> oh, yeah, it's going to be, we'll be putting it in soon and i think-- >> maybe a couple of switch we don't want to benefit democrat governors although i would do that if it would make it better, but we don't want to do any damage to the state, we want to help all the states, but we have governors that are from the democrat party let's say new york, illinois, big ones and gavin newsom who's done a horrible job in california. we want to benefit republicans because they are the ones that are going to make america great gep. the democrats are destroying our country and you see that

with the past administration, with an open borders policy that allowed 21 million people into our country and many of those people are stone cold murderers, killers and trouble, yeah. >> say it? >> (inaudible). >> i'm a fiscal hawk, i'm a bigger fiscal hawk, there's nobody like me. >> and-- >> because we have to fix the country. >> down that's incorrect in saying that this is adding --. >> no, i don't think that thomas massey understands government, i think he's a grandstander, probably, but we don't talk to him much. i think he should be voted out of office and i don't think he understands the government. if you ask him a couple of questions he never gives you an answer he just says i'm a no. he thinks he's going to get publicity and you have that, you have that. they've got some, too. >> mr. president on medicaid, do you want work requirements

phased-- >> on medicaid, i'm not touching anything, three words, we don't want waste, fraud abuse. other than that we're leaving it. medicare we're leaving it. all we're after, there's a lot of waste, fraud and abuse, that's all we're doing. we're not touching it. the democrats are going to destroy it. [inaudible conversations] . >> waste, fraud and abuse. thank you very much. >> you've been watching live coverage. we return now to our scheduled program. we join it in progress. >> i had no choice, i had to bring this to the court and i think the supreme court will give some guidance, perhaps, before court, but i agree, it won't be satisfactory and

legislative involvement is warranted. i'll make a prediction about the birthright citizenship issue when it gets back to the court on the merits which i imagine next term, and that is don't shoot the messenger, i think they'll rule against the administration on split the baby decision and maybe congress can change our longstanding position on birthright citizenship and that's how i see kavanaugh and roberts on it. and with respect to removal of the gang members, where multiple courts have ruled that members or alleged members of tren de aragua can be, you know, sometimes can't, sometimes can be deported by using an enemy's act, but at least there has to be due process in the sense if someone

says, hey, i'm not a gang member or hey, i'm an american citizen, this tattoo is an homage to my parents rather than something else, i think that that is going to-- that line of jurisprudence is going to hold up. none other than john yu has been toting that line and i don't think that you'll have the supreme court more in favor of executive power than john. with respect to abrego garcia, kind of a mistaken, you know, administrative error, whatever you call it. i'm waiting for the next shoe to drop in terms of whatever the administration is negotiating about sending him to a third country or putting him on a plane back to the u.s. with an administrative law judge and immigration judge on the plane to adjudicate and remove the block on sending him to el salvador so the plane will turn around in mid air and send him right back, something like that. [applause] >> that's a terrible carbon

footprint that you just laid out there. >> well, lee zeldin will be speaking later, you can take it up with him. [laughter] >> and the other big immigration area we're seeing with student visa revocations. i'm a big advocate for the freedom of speech, i stand behind nobody in that, but immigration regulation introduces a wrinkle in the sense that foreigners do have generally the same speech rights as americans ideosyncratic issues like campaign finance notwithstanding, meaning they can't be punished, persecuted, thrown in jail, fined for their speech, but there are perfectly valid and should be uncontroversial immigration regulations that say that if you believe in say, the violent overthrow of the u.s. government or if you're a nazi, or if you're a terrorist, you believe in, you know, violent methods of, you know, doing x, y, z. you cannot get a visa. and the longstanding rule is, that's something that makes you ineligible for a visa, makes

your visa revocable when you have that ideological position. there's a slew of student visa revocations going on. strangely, the democrats have glommed on the this mohammad khalil character, and whatever the need to reform immigration regulations or speech protections, because he's done a whole lot of other bad things, not simply speak or write an op-ed, what have you as part of a conspiracy to take over hamilton hall in columbia and all of these other things. but he is a green card holder and make a difference between green card holder between a student or working visa, he has more due process and he's having court hearings and don't necessarily hear so much about the run-of-the-mill visa revocation. turning next in our smorgasbord

to doge. we don't hear so much about doge anymore, the tesla board of democrats want him to tend to that stock valuation, but doge was on solid ground and won a lot of court rulings with respect to rescinding contracts or looking at payment systems. when you think about it, it's odd to say that the treasury secretary and his agents can't have access to payment methods and things like that. where they ran into some trouble when they tried to fire people who were due civil service protections, maybe those need to be reformed, maybe they do, and i think that's a separate issue or purported to not spend money that congress specifically appropriated. that comes under impoundment so there are legal skirmishes there. and doge, contrary to the media

narrative is a valid office within the office like the council of economic advisors, white house counsel's office, all aides to the president and in fact, doge was created, you don't know this, by president obama, the u.s. digital service and trump renamed it and appointed workers and away you go. now, of course, doge, nor the executive more broadly can't simply eliminate the department of education without congressional action. if congress creates something, then congress has to remove it, but there can be reorganization condition the executive branch which is what you're seeing with the functionality of usaid moving into states, certain loan administrations moving from education to treasury and otherwise. it's why marco rubio has at last count, what, 17, 18 jobs, something like that. what about the removal of agency heads, rubio or

otherwise? i think this is a very contestable issue and here is another prediction, which again is worth what you're paying for it, that next year, the supreme court will either completely overturn or limit to its facts, humphrey's executor, that there's a fourth or fifth branch of government unaccountable to the president, the president can't remove. i think that that's one of the main legacies, at least of the early trump administration. moving to executive orders about gender identity and sex, the definition of women, i'm glad that president trump was able to give justice brown jackson an answer to what a woman is, that's clarified now and we saw the supreme court remove the injunction against separating transgender members of the military for readiness purposes. it seems that that seems to make sense to me. and finally, higher education. this has gotten a lot of

attention. i think you know, the-- our institutions of higher ed have lost a tremendous amount of public confidence, they've been getting away with tremendous civil rights violations and discrimination not just on viewpoints and faculty hiring and otherwise, but on race, on all of these categories that are squarely within title six and other federal law. not to mention anti-semitism and the self-damning report, for example, that harvard just put out. now, i can quibble with some of the strategies that the administration has pursued in going after harvard, say, some reporting suggests that the april 11th letter wasn't fully authorized and now we've kind of frozen in place any chance of internal reform with lawsuits that harvard files. at the end of the day, once the

process files are resolved, i'm confident that the investigations that are ongoing of all of these institutions, will, indeed, reveal copious evidence of violations and a lot of the funds will be paused, to be clear, civil rights laws say that, you know, all funds, research funds, medical funds, what have you, are threatened by civil rights violations. so it's not a matter of germaneness. how can you tie in aspect of doing nothing in the face of anti-semitism, racial discriminations and hiring admissions tied to nih grants, what have you. it turns out that congress over president reagan's veto, allowed, removed any germaneness requirement. but, dylan, no stranger here, needs a lot more help, a lot more bodies, it turns out none

of the lawyers, or most of the lawyers at doj don't want to protect civil rights. if you have junior associates or others perhaps that want to help out with that effort, i think that will be most welcome. >> all right, thank you to ilya shapiro as well. [applause] >> we knew you could handle all of those topics. with the gentlest fatherly admonition that we require at this stage in our proceedings generally speaking shorter disposition from the panelists for a few questions to the moderator and turn it over to questions from the audience in our remaining time. i'd like to begin by asking carey severino, is maga a text actualist movement?

>> i don't know if it's dealing with that question in particular. donald trump in his first term of nominees certainly produced judges who were originalists and textualist. while that's more part of the rhetoric, it's certainly in his first campaign that has been less of the focus of the discussion right now. i do think -- so, you know, i think there's a lot of reasons for that. there are other issues that dominated the second campaign. i think what we're going to see then is are his judges the same originalists or textualists. whether one is speaking about it or this is the rallying cry, i think is this the type of judges. i think from what we've seen so far, we are going to continue to see very originalist judges. and there's certainly nothing incompatible having excellent originalist judges and as

necessary, also judges who are very courageous and willing to employ that originalist, to set right a lot of the errors in our judicial world right now and to that extent, i think that's very consistent with some of the goals of the maga movement more broadly, although it's hard to contain that in one description. >> to jessie. as we all in this room and all of us watching these proceedings know, the law is quite often advanced or changed or directed as a result of activists. and so, rosa parks was chosen not by accident, not randomly by the ncaa to be the person on that bus and to advance that case and look what important-- what an important landmark it provided. if in the case of the nationwide injunctions we don't want to see federal judges

having the authority in a given district, and i learned from carrie severino, there are in the united states, if an activist group by its own perspective maintains some principled opposition to let's say a new policy initiative of the trump administration and wishes to use the court to oppose that policy, from your-- in your vision or in the vision of senator grassley and those who propose legislation, what should, if this nationwide injunction power were stripped of federal judges, what would be the con enshus and smart play? >> you do the same thing when in inis acting illegally, you take them to court and you get relief. if it's multiple people that

need relief, they can file multiple lawsuits or they can all join together and be playoffs in one lawsuit or avail themselves of the class action if they're available for a class action. and not everything is appropriate for a class action because it's not fair to the acting class members or to the defendant or there are the proper protections. that's how litigation in this country operated for hundreds of years until about the 1960's, when we had a different kind of judge get appointed and we had a different kind of administrative power grow up and the judiciary, you know, a few instances of nationwide injunctions nen and really, only in the last four or five presidential administrations have we seen the judiciary sort of super size its power, if you will. >> just to follow up with you, it seems, jesse, a flip where the nationwide injunctions

would be concerned and i've heard from justices of the supreme court, an increasing trend which i think accelerated under mr. biden and we've seen continued under trump 2.0 whereby administrations are seeking emergency rulings from the supreme court. can you address that? is that a thing? >> yes, that is a thing. the emergency docket at the supreme court and one of the reasons that we've had -- there's really two reasons i think that the cases are moving to the supreme court on an emergency bases. one is judges are acting nationwide leaving administrations no choice, but if they want to do what they were elected to do and have mandate from the people to do they have to go to the supreme court to get relief from these edicts of these lone federal district judges sometimes sitening far-flung jurisdictions and deciding quickly with little briefing. the other reason that cases are going to the supreme court on an emergency basis is that the executive branch and the administrative state is so much

more vast powerful than the founders ever could have envisioned so presidents are claiming extraordinary power. look at what happened during covid. now, we were locked in our houses due to executive edicts and we couldn't-- landlords couldn't collect rents and there were vaccine mandates and mask mandates and things that used to be controlled by states and local governments are now being put upon the people by the federal executive and so, you know, the other doctrine that the supreme court needs to revisit and they have a case this term is the nondelegation doctrine, whether it's okay for congress to simply give the policy making power to the executive branch so it can do these things. if those two things were reined in, overreaching judicial branch and the overreaching executive branch you would see fewer emergency medical cases at the court. >> ilya shapiro, i want to ask about two features of the trump administration's legal posture to date under 2.0.

one is the extraordinary number of executive order that we see president trump signing on a near daily basis. correct me if i'm wrong, but i believe that at least at one point and for quite a period of time, it was a tentative conservative legal faith that executive orders were generally to be avoided where possible. do you regard the president's extraordinary employment of this means of policy advancement as kosher to use a specific legal term? [laughter] >> well, i'm jewish so i don't know about the specifics of the discussion, so, first of all, you know, i've been saying this all along since i've been a court watcher, a legal pundit, what have you, the number of executive orders as such isn't so important.

measuring, has obama gone too far because i hit the 100 mark, and is trump making the mark. it's not the number, it's how important they are, a mrokmation of that, heritage month, this or that, that's an executive order. but trump this term clearly, they hit the ground running. unlike the first term, the transition term was to lawyer up hard-hitting things in areas the ones i touched on, plus a whole of government, dei, not just biden's insinuation of dei commissars throughout the government or obama's laying the groundwork for that. but even l bj's executive order on affirmative action, more recently in that vein, getting rid of disparate impact in terms of interpretations of civil rights laws and on and on. i mean, drilling, you could go across the policy areas, anything in which the

administration, in which government action turns on administrative discretion or the organization of the executive branch, they have hit and that was just impressive to see. i mean, i was expecting something like that, but it surprised in a pleasant way even me. now, the problem is, you live by the executive action, you die by the executive action, so just as so many of president trump's orders were reversing things that have been done in the past, so many of president biden's were reversing what trump did in his first term. so, unless a lot of this gets codified by legislation, it's ephemeral, unfortunately, so the next democratic president when there is one is going to, you know, put the dei commissars back and redefine what is a woman and all of these other things that trump has rightly earned a claim for, that are, you know, 80-20

issues. so it's generally good and, i mean, again, you have to be parsimonious, the executive orders i like, the ones i don't like, i don't like. and you can't just generalize, any administration gets into hot water when it starts to create law rather than just changing interpretations enforcement practices by the executive or reorganizing the executive, and two, we need to start codifying this stuff because another record for the first 100 days is the fewest number of laws passed by congress as well. >> very quickly, ilya, because i want to turn it over to the audience i've promised to can you is about two aspects of the trump legal posture. we've heard it sort of publicly floated in recent days, perhaps ahead of an actual policy announcement there's some consideration given to the suspension of habeas corpus as part of the deportation

efforts. your thoughts. >> i can't imagine any court would uphold that because it's only been done during times of war and even now, to this day, we debate whether lincoln was acting rightly, even if we recognize that it's extra constitutional as opposed to unconstitutional, that's another theoretical disposition, but it's not -- it could -- i don't know whether this is a ploy to kind of message things or a shot across the bow or what have you. actually taking that action, i don't see a world where it works out. >> let's turn it over to our panelists, what a group. [applause]. >> all right, we have two volunteers prowling the audience looking for those who would like to ask a question. again, to those who pose questions here, keep it tight. let's be respectful and hear from our panelists. first question, this gentleman,

give us your name and your tight question. tim from delaware, yesterday a number of husband attended the supreme court argument and seemed that the supreme court is skeptical of the class actions or the way to deal with this issue of national injunctions. and as you predicted i agree, they want congress to take action. so if congress is going to take action, what steps should they do to address form shopping, should there be sort of a panel of district judges with expedited appeals? more specifics you think would solve the problem. >> great question. thank you. you know, were they skeptical of the class action? maybe. and i do think it will be a problem if the court were to rein in nationwide injunctions, courts would just-- the same courts that believe ner the wisest in the land and should rule for everyone will simply say, oh, i see a class there certified, wouldn't be a serious, rigorous analysis. maybe we need to look at at

that and the law will evolve around when a b-2 class is appropriate in injunctive relief, but strong medicine by few of the court. my view of what need to be included in legislation to fix this. and by the way, i don't think that the supreme court wants congress to act, but i think that congress should. one, you need to make sure none of the statutes including the apa would have any language that would allow the courts to seize upon it and say they have the nationwide powerment two, i think the legislation needs to make clear that tro's are immediately appealable because now judges are playing games using tro's instead of preliminary injunctions which are appealable and because courts will still find ways around this, they'll use the class action or they'll use associational standing or use states and say it applies to everybody in multiple states, i think there should be mandatory jurisdiction for the supreme

court when the attorney general of the united states certifies it as an emergency. in other words, the supreme court cannot dock the merrick rulings anymore. if the attorney general says it's an emergency and important to the executive branch then the supreme court must rule on the merits so we can have at least a ruling that should have nationwide precedenceal effect. >> if i-- if you have a judge that's willful and activist you could theoretically have, as we've seen emergency declarations can get boot strapped into much larger things than sometimes they should be. so, just flagging that. unfortunately, the solution to all of these things, if you have an unprincipled judiciary or unprincipled before the judiciary, it's going to be very difficult to maintain because i feel like that unfortunately, there's still potential for abuse within even that system. at the end of the day without

having judges who are going to be principals, it's going to be really hard to fix the system. >> speaking of devils advocates, can you imagine the billable hours of the devil? this lady right here. please identify yourself and what is your short question, please. >> marion-- >> hold the microphone closer to your mouth. >> marion from sanctuary city -- i mean, new york city. i'm sorry, excuse me. what measure, if any, can be used to prevent packing the courts? >> so what has worked so far-- >> did everyone hear the question. >> what measure if any can be used to prevent packing of the courts. >> i think the challenge, the measure that's available to do that is the representative process. the number of justices on the supreme court is not defined in the constitution, it's something that has actually

changed over time historically and in a couple of occasions in the 19th century was changed for political reasons. i think the only thing preventing the democrats from having done it last time was, well, kyrsten sinema and joe manchin who have voted for every single one of biden's nominees except a couple at the end when they weren't necessary, at least did stand up for that and i think they did it because they realized how unpopular that would be. so the only ultimate check is making sure that people, that there are not people elected who thinks that's a great idea to pack the court and to just use power, whatever power you can amass to create that. i don't need to explain to you guys what a horrible one way ratchet. that's part of the history of venezuela and its decline into tyranny as well. and let's not go there.

people proposed a constitutional amendment to lock in the number, and that's always a possibility, but it's always a high bar to get something like. >> they'd have to get rid of the filibuster first, which is what carrie was alluding to. i'm not sure they would use this issue, packing the court, unpopular, and it would have to get rid of the filibuster and then on packing the court. even bernie sanders, i don't know what he's thinking right now. when he was running for president in 2020 i'm not going to do the accent because he said he was against it because if we do it now, the republicans will do it and 50 careers from now we'll have 87 justicesment possibly the only thing that i've agreed with bernie sanders. >> you have to be careful if they become it's popular, joe biden said it was a bonehead

thing and then switched. >> who knows if he-- >> we're out of time, i'm sorry, ladies. i'm grateful for you for joining us and all of you on television. thank you. and thank you to our panelists. [applause]. [inaudible conversations] >> tonight, the house rules committee is set to debate the republicans tax and spend proposal, and looking to make president taxes in 2017 under president trump. if approved by the rules committee the bill would go to the house floor for a vote this week. watch live coverage at 1 a.m. eastern on c-span. c-span now, our free mobile video app and online at c-span.org. >> if you ever miss any of c-span's coverage, you can find it anytime online at

c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and news worthy highlights. these points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen. when you hit play on select video. this timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's points of interest. >> minority leader chuck schumer wished former president joe biden the best after his prostate cancer diagnosis. and discusses legislation to prohibit any foreign plane to be used as air force one after qatar gifted the president for that use. >> mr. president, today our thoughts and prayers are with president biden and his family after his cancer diagnosis this weekend. if there's one