On today's show, Rachel Maddow and John Ava nonchalantly discuss the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of President Trump's request for absolute immunity from all of the Justice Department's investigation of him. They discuss the implications of the ruling, and what it means for the 2020 election.
00:00:00.000The problem is, is that love it or hate it, he would come in as one of the most powerful figures and he would he would stress test it immediately.
00:00:07.940They have very specific plans. This is not the haphazard Trump that we covered in 2017.
00:00:12.480This is a much more organized operation, at least the people in the institutions around him.
00:00:17.820So it was gobsmacking when the Supreme Court took it up.
00:00:20.860But I remember talking to you that day and in my glass half empty kind of way, I thought, well, the worst, even under the worst case scenario,
00:00:28.800it's not like they're going to decide that he's immune.
00:00:31.560It's just outrageous that they've taken it up because this will allow for months of delay and will effectively give him temporary immunity before the election.
00:00:41.340And once the election happens, if he wins, he makes all the prosecutions go away anyway.
00:00:45.680I really did not expect that they would do this.
00:00:48.880And they, you know, Donald Trump and his counsel asked for this 100 percent absolute immunity thing, which was insane.
00:00:58.360I would say they got one hundred and five percent of what they were asking for.
00:01:02.180They got immunity from this court, despite some of the language in Judge Justice Roberts is the ruling saying that there was some some some measure of humility or some measure of restraint.
00:01:15.060The practical impact of what they have done is to give Trump immunity that even he and his counsel did not ask for.
00:01:21.840And given that the hypotheticals over the course of these arguments, as you rightly pointed out, included things like, can the president assassinate a rival?
00:01:30.660I think we have to look at the Supreme Court's affirmative answer to that.
00:01:35.240Yes, you can with as much seriousness as it deserves.
00:01:41.680This is a ruling that says that as long as you can construe it as an official or quasi official act, you can do absolutely anything, absolutely anything and never be held accountable, not only while you are president, but forever.
00:01:58.580And this is a president who has activated pro-Trump paramilitary groups that, you know, wear insignia and T-shirts and hold placards celebrating literally right wing death squads.
00:02:11.340Right. This is a president who has talked about absolutely using the Justice Department to go after his to go after his rivals.
00:02:19.980This explicitly immunizes anything the president wants to do through the Justice Department, but all but explicitly justifies anything the president wants to do full stop to anyone.
00:02:33.920Yeah. I mean, I think he said this publicly a thousand times to Nicole's point.
00:02:38.760And I was reading today, if anybody's following along on the lovely Project 2025 plan on page 560.
00:02:46.020This is the first line of that of that part. The next conservative administration should embrace the Constitution and understand the obligation of the executive branch to use its independent resources and authorities to restrain the excesses of both the legislative and judicial branches.
00:03:00.660This is the plan that Steve Bannon has been holding up in his recent interviews before he went to jail today, of course, to say this is what we're going to do.
00:03:07.820And the justices, what they did today is basically I mean, I worked for two presidents, Nicole worked for a president.
00:03:13.220You haven't needed this immunity in the past. There have been bad things that have happened under presidents.
00:03:18.400I'm not. But like they haven't. They've done the bad things even without.
00:03:22.460Exactly. Nobody's walking around waiting for the immunity.
00:03:26.140The president I worked for didn't wait, didn't meet, didn't look for the immunity.
00:03:29.640And now you have the person. So you're asking the American public, to Rachel's point, to vote for people and trust the presidents they elect will have the morality and the benevolence to not abuse.
00:03:41.640That's essentially what they're doing.
00:03:43.500You're all much smarter than me. The political person in me wanted him to deal with the elephant in the room, which it was what happened Thursday night.
00:03:50.340And I think when he talked about Washington, he should have said I should know I was there.
00:03:53.380I mean, every opportunity, every opportunity has to be viewed through a political lens if we all agree with what Rachel Maddow said at the beginning of the hour.
00:04:02.060And I think we do. The only way to protect the country from the Supreme Court is to make sure that Donald Trump is never president again.
00:06:04.480We've got Mark Paoletta coming on, Caroline Wren, Mike Howell, Kevin Roberts with Heritage Foundation, Ben Harnwell.
00:06:11.380Jim Jordan will be joining us at 1130, et cetera.
00:06:14.580We're going to be dealing with the immunity case largely, the Supreme Court decisions, how this affects you.
00:06:23.140And, you know, Steve never likes us talking about him personally, and so I never do it.
00:06:27.320But today, you know, I'm going to take an exception because we all love him, and we had Mo on yesterday.
00:06:33.020And so, you know, the left is bemoaning this takeover of immunity, and Trump and the MAGA is going to extend power beyond the rule of law.
00:06:44.480They have no evidence for any of that.
00:06:46.780But, you know, like Paul Harvey used to say, it's time for the rest of the story.
00:06:52.660What they leave out of their neat little narrative is going way back.
00:06:57.620President Trump and the administration didn't do any of the stuff they're talking about.
00:07:01.740They made all the threats about it, right?
00:07:04.100And back then, it was the Uniparty and the Republicans, and I was there in the House, squawking about everything that Trump was going to do in wars and whatever.
00:07:13.700And, in fact, we had peace and prosperity for four years until the Chinese exported their coronavirus.
00:07:21.300And then, not only did the Trump administration not exhibit any of this overreach, then the left did.
00:07:31.720And Mark Paoletta and I are going to do a deep dive on that right now.
00:07:35.920But what they miss is Peter Navarro and Stephen K. Bannon are in jail today.
00:07:41.600And President Trump could go to jail on July 12.
00:07:59.680That Justice Department coordinated attack.
00:08:02.080All of these things are timed miraculously so that the chief spokesman, Stephen K. Bannon, for President Trump is in jail precisely four months before the election, right up to the election.
00:08:12.020The chief architect of changing the structure of the U.S. economy, particularly with respect to China, is Peter Navarro.
00:08:32.780These are from the news, the major news networks of our day, the major spokespeople.
00:08:37.500I think the reason Steve put me in this seat for the first couple days is just because I'm friends with a lot of the war room posse out there, and I'm friends with a lot of folks here.
00:08:48.520And he knows I have a hard time lying, right?
00:08:51.300I'm looking you in the face in the camera, and I pledge to you always, right up there, is the sign of the cross.
00:08:58.820And every day I think I'll open up Steve's Catholic in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
00:09:05.500Everything I say in this show will fall underneath that, right?
00:09:09.620Everything else in this world is under that God's order.
00:09:13.760And so I pledge to tell you the truth, bring on people who only tell the truth, and we're going to call out lies as we see them from the folks who are telling lies.
00:09:23.560And so, Mark Paoletta, it's an honor to have you in.
00:09:45.520And so I'm a populist, so bear with me as I learn the ropes.
00:09:48.260But, Mark, if you want to respond to that clip and then any notes you have on immunity and then broader commentary on the Supreme Court decisions this week, fire away.
00:10:03.520It was a great day for President Trump with the immunity decision yesterday, but even a greater day for the U.S. Constitution and our country and the protection of our liberties and a strong chief executive.
00:10:15.940The clip you started off with just shows you this alternative universe that the left lives in and their projection, too, right?
00:10:26.020They're the ones who have weaponized the law.
00:10:29.200They're the ones who have gone after, right, this kind of Stalinist, give me the man, I'll show you the crime, right?
00:10:35.060Bannon, Navarro, President Trump, right, using the law, right?
00:10:39.500It's unprecedented to go after the presidents.
00:10:41.280The Supreme Court hasn't had to deal with this issue that came before them, as Chief Justice Roberts says, in our entire history, because nobody's done it before.
00:10:53.020You know, you could have—somebody could have prosecuted President Clinton, right, for when he was going through his, you know, his impeachment and his travails by bombing another country.
00:11:08.280And that is clearly within the president's constitutional authority.
00:11:11.560You cannot question presidents and what they do.
00:11:15.380What the Supreme Court did yesterday, though, in terms of just not keeping that at a high level, it said, yes, for official acts, core official acts, the president is absolutely immune.
00:11:24.880For the rest of these acts within his official sort of powers, it's going to be presumptive.
00:11:31.380But they put up a really, really high bar for you to be able to get at that.
00:11:36.020So it was, to me, the court doing this specifically—and one of the charges was this idea of the president literally talking to his Department of Justice officials.
00:11:45.440The court said that's absolutely immune, as it should be.
00:11:49.240And then the rest of it gets kicked back down to the lower courts to do some fact-finding.
00:11:53.380But, again, this should have never been at the Supreme Court.
00:11:56.980This should have never been, you know, this entire prosecution.
00:12:01.160And the interesting, too, not to get too legal here, but Justice Thomas' concurrence in the case yesterday basically said that there's a serious issue whether Jack Smith's appointment is even constitutional.
00:12:15.320And so because he was appointed by the attorney general, not the president of the United States, as the Constitution requires, and Congress needs to make an office for which to have a prosecutor.
00:12:29.360And so that is actually down before Judge Cannon in Florida.
00:12:32.600And she could actually rule on that and wipe out the entire Jack Smith prosecution.
00:12:36.520So that may be the sleeper issue coming out of this.
00:12:39.100But going back to the Democrats and their projection, they are the ones—it's Joe Biden who literally said on the campaign trail, the Supreme Court tried to stop me, right?
00:12:49.540The Supreme Court struck down his wholesale takeover of student loans and trying to cancel them.
00:13:26.240The Obama administration had their OLC write an opinion that the president could unilaterally declare the Senate in recess, okay?
00:13:34.420And if you remember this, Obama then appointed, recess appointed, a number of appointees to what's called the National Labor Relations Board.
00:13:42.680They issued 1,500 opinions, I think, that were all kind of left-wing.
00:13:47.760And the Supreme Court ruled nine to zero that that was unconstitutional.
00:13:51.940So when you talk about lawyers and using your lawyers as a way to act lawlessly, it's the Obama and Biden administration that have led the charge on this.
00:14:04.920You know, President Trump came into power, right?
00:14:07.460And he said he wasn't going to go after Hillary Clinton, right?
00:14:11.000You know, she's the one who destroyed records.
00:14:13.040She's the one who weaponized the Department of Justice and helped them go after President Trump.
00:14:17.640Now, clearly serious, you know, illegal conduct.
00:14:23.360But President Trump said, you know what, we're going to look forward and we're going to make America great again, which is what he did.
00:16:44.500That means every single person that is going to be around him, they're going to plan for that person to make sure that they take the oath.
00:16:53.240Can you explain how if Donald Trump even slightly pushes the envelope on this, which we know he will totally push the envelope, what this could look like in terms of, I mean, there are not going to be people around him who say, listen, I don't have immunity.
00:17:18.600He surrounded himself with people that he thought looked the part and might be good at the job that turned out to be restraints on his power.
00:17:25.260The lesson he learned from that is get rid of all restraints.
00:17:27.860Make sure you only have loyalists working for you at the cabinet level, inside the White House, but also in the bowels of government.
00:17:33.600Make sure that anybody like a McConnell, a Liz Cheney, a Paul Ryan, anybody who has institutional power that could thwart you, get rid of them.
00:17:43.300There's going to be no person in a position of power in Congress, especially if Republicans win the majority in the House of Senate, who you would say is a Trump critic that would put the brakes on the work that he would do.
00:17:53.980He's not going to have any of those people around him before.
00:17:56.660All right, Denver, I can't take it anymore.
00:18:04.320Let me respond to Morning Mika and this threat to democracy with some facts.
00:18:11.380In an unprecedented move, the Biden administration's Justice Department has shattered a 250-year tradition of honoring executive privilege by imprisoning two former Trump advisors,
00:18:23.720Peter Navarro and now Stephen Bannon for contempt of Congress.
00:18:28.260This action marks a significant departure from historical precedent and raises concerns about the balance of power in American governance.
00:18:58.740Then eight hours later, the Obama folks got out their pencils, found out a few inconvenient facts that we're going to cover later in this hour about money that can't be shared and about states which may be too late to move on.
00:19:11.380And so now everybody's circling the wagons again.
00:19:14.680One more little piece of information, previous administrations, including those of Obama and Bush, chose not to pursue legal action against officials like Eric Holder, Lois Lerner, Josh Bolton, Harriet Myers when faced with similar circumstances.
00:19:30.820So it's President Biden that has broken the 250-year legal precedent here by putting two, not high end, the highest end.
00:20:13.100I don't see any policy debate coming our way.
00:20:15.920I wish there was one because we'd like to get into those kind of things.
00:20:20.140One of the issues I ran on was the border issue, illegal immigration back then against a prominent Republican.
00:20:27.100The American people made their choice there.
00:20:30.120Now it's 20 to 30 million under an executive decision by President Biden.
00:20:35.940Not a word from the left, from the mainstream media about the abuse and the extent of executive orders and the extension of executive power, right?
00:20:49.240Congress is supposed to be doing all that.
00:20:51.200We have abdicated, and I put that on the unit party, and your commentary there about Republicans in the House, you know, everyone's compliant to Trump.
00:21:19.800It didn't do anything to save the kids in the schools.
00:21:22.620On the schools, a footnote, because I'm a professor, everybody ought to go watch the Jordan Peterson interview with the toughest schoolmaster in Great Britain, in England.
00:21:32.240Just a phenomenal—that's the soul of the country.
00:21:34.580The liberals, I wish you were all liberals.
00:22:00.220They're fearful that President Trump is going to be even more effective in his second term.
00:22:04.820The American people are listening to what he's talking about, open borders.
00:22:08.120This is the most despicable thing Joe Biden has done, is to open our border to an invasion, right?
00:22:14.60020 million people, whatever the number is, that's come across, that they've welcomed across.
00:22:19.160So, you know, President Trump being more effective in pursuing his policies is a good thing for the American people.
00:22:26.360And there will be tried and tested people coming into his administration.
00:22:30.240One of the things, so that is, that is, their fear of an effective President Trump tells you all you need to know.
00:22:39.560Going back to this lawlessness and the lack of respect for our institution, it is the left, and you're seeing it today, Dave, right?
00:22:47.320AOC doesn't like an opinion, what she's going to impeach, she's going to introduce articles of impeachment to get rid of Supreme Court justices.
00:22:57.200And you had, I take this lawlessness, this lack of respect for our Constitution and our country, back to at least, you know, Chuck Schumer, standing on the steps of the Supreme Court, telling Supreme Court justices how they have to vote on an abortion case.
00:23:11.540Or, in his words, you will release the whirlwind and you won't know what hit you.
00:23:16.540And I take those words as a direct through line to the assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh.
00:23:22.840They have unleashed holy hell on the Supreme Court because they don't like their opinions.
00:23:28.140Let's not, that is what's going on today and every day.
00:23:32.260They've weaponized the Senate and all their investigations into Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, going after their wives, going after their friends.
00:23:41.080This is, this is a holy war on the Supreme Court that this, that the left has unleashed because they do not like their opinions.
00:23:48.780You didn't see conservatives, right, when we lost battle after battle over the past 30 years, going to attack justices' homes and threaten their families or engage in assassination attempts.
00:24:02.120You know, but that's what the left does.
00:24:13.160It's a projection because they are the thugs, they are the lawless party that comes after their conservatives, that comes after Steve Bannon, that comes after Peter Navarro, that comes after President Trump right now.
00:24:25.760At every level they come after him, right?
00:24:27.660This Alvin Bragg, you know, you know, you know, you know, prosecution up in New York, the Willis prosecution down in, down in Georgia.
00:24:37.880These are all weaponizing the law and they sit in their, their, their TV studios talking about how President Trump is going to do this when they're in fact in the middle of doing it.
00:25:08.840But, you know, one of the theses of the, of the war room is the globalist, the elitist, the billionaire class is in charge.
00:25:17.060And so it's a little curious that, you know, all of a sudden Obama and the forces that be, and I brought up Glennon's book yesterday, National Security and the Double Government, are now fine with President Biden staying in there.
00:25:29.880At first, we had what Steve K. Bannon called a national security crisis leading into a constitutional crisis.
00:25:37.900And so another major element you didn't see reported by any of the mainstream media, last week it came out, Paul Ryan had the Steele dossier in 16, 2016.
00:25:49.300The Speaker of the House on the Republican side had the Steele dossier, put committees in play to study it, to go explore it, without telling them that he had the dossier that was set up.
00:26:00.180And that was the foundation for the attacks on Russia, Russia, Russia.
00:26:04.040And so D.C. and the swamps are out of control.
00:26:07.520I think the American people get that now.
00:26:24.660That's got a lot of my op-eds defending the Supreme Court and calling out the left.
00:26:29.060And I'm at the Center for Renewing America, Russ Votes, great organization that's, you know, been doing great work since we left the White House in 21.
00:27:04.160So all these plans about getting rid of Biden and subbing someone else in are very, very complicated, okay?
00:27:09.820You've got 50 states, 50 different sets of rules.
00:27:12.800We've gone through them all, going to get into some specific states with real big problems for them.
00:27:17.540But the point remains, even for that, in addition to transferring the large war chest of money from the Biden-Harris campaign to somebody else, to effectuate logistically such a mass change would instantly be met with loads of litigation from yours truly.
00:27:38.540Yeah, Mike Howell is going to be with us, and then Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, will weigh in and give us a meta view of maybe some of the particular Supreme Court decisions over the week.
00:27:52.380He's a Christian icon, friend of mine, now the head of the Heritage Foundation, which stands for the American Constitution, drawing within the lines, following the rule of law.
00:28:05.240And he'll be with us to give the meta view of what all those Supreme Court decisions mean together.
00:28:15.940I want to warn you of a huge change that could be coming to our money and our bank accounts.
00:28:22.640First, think back to 9-11, shortly after the government pushed through the Patriot Act.
00:28:26.640This gave the government power to spy on innocent Americans by monitoring our phone and email and tracking our movement across the Internet.
00:28:35.500Now, Jim Rickards, editor of the independent financial newsletter Strategic Intelligence and New York Times bestselling author,
00:28:42.160is warning about a coming event that could elevate this governmental surveillance to a terrifying new level.
00:28:48.720In fact, some of the guests I've had on the war room believe that the government will soon expand their powers to track our every move.
00:28:56.120If we say the wrong things on social media, donate to the wrong causes, buy firearms, or even vote MAGA,
00:29:03.200the government may be able to shut us out of our bank accounts.
00:29:06.480I can't say for sure if this will happen, but it's an interesting and dire warning.
00:29:12.540Fortunately, Jim Rickards, an American patriot and friend of mine,
00:29:15.660has made it his mission to educate us on what he believes is coming
00:29:19.400and how to protect yourself from the possibility of programmable money.
00:29:25.180Watch Jim's warning video now before it's censored like I've been in the past.
00:30:37.600And so go listen to what they tell you about your portfolio and what you should be doing to guard against risky times ahead.
00:30:45.860Back with Mike Howell from Heritage Foundation.
00:30:50.300Mike, I think last week you had some great analysis showing a few states that could be problematic with a switch if they switch out Biden for another candidate.
00:31:01.160I think I think it was Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona.
00:31:04.640But why don't you give us a minute or two on that and a couple of minutes on the money and then we'll go to the boss.
00:31:11.500So 50 different states, 50 different sets of rules.
00:31:14.460Think of this as what happens at the convention is completely different from ballot access issues, which are the state laws and rules procedures that govern this.
00:31:23.200And so some states like Nevada, for example, they need to have those the name by the fourth Friday of July.
00:31:29.620In Maine, if there's going to be a withdrawal, it's got to be by the second Monday.
00:31:33.240If it's a substitution by the fourth Monday in Texas, you've got to have it all wrapped up 71 days out of the election.
00:31:40.940And so there are these varying timelines.
00:31:42.840But what makes matters very interesting is there's also different kind of requirements to do this in some states.
00:31:48.880Some states are more specific than others.
00:31:51.280Some states require a finding of completing capacity of the president.
00:31:55.980And so think about that, what that would entail.
00:31:57.980Well, it'd be politically very difficult for this administration, not only the president himself to admit that he's completely incapacitated, but think of all the officials who have in public statements or official statements attested to his capacity and been in on this lie.
00:32:12.900It would be a house of cards that would fall and take down a lot of people with it to include a lot of the regime press and scribes that have been pushing this lie on the American people.
00:32:22.440And so for that political reason, it's very complicated to even get to the incapacity finding.
00:32:27.460And that's really the least of their problems.
00:32:29.640Every day that goes on, it gets harder and harder for them to make this switch.
00:32:33.800That is why right now, the only three people in the world, I think, fighting to keep President Biden on the ballot are him, Jill, and the oversight practice at the Heritage Foundation, because we don't think you can just make up the election rules as you go.
00:33:54.460But what do we learn about limitations, rules, laws, and procedures over the last three and a half years?
00:33:59.160Their advisory for the left, who has completely turned this system of government on its head and is trying to arrest not only their chief political opponent and President Trump,
00:34:07.880but have Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro sitting in jail right now as we speak with many other political patriots serving out political press.
00:34:16.780Hey, Mike, reverse that, reverse that sentence.
00:34:20.020Say that one more time right from the top.
00:34:22.640All the policies, procedures start at the top, go slow.
00:34:27.880We could spend a lot of time talking about the laws and the rules and how this country should operate.
00:34:33.700And for the point I'm trying to make is we're in a post-constitutional order right now in that the system is literally creaking at its seams.
00:34:43.200And the Supreme Court is the only thing keeping the lawless left in check.
00:34:47.300So even if there are limitations on how Biden can be switched out or how the money can be switched around, the law is advisory for the left right now.
00:34:56.180They're willing to do everything within their power to stop Trump.
00:34:58.940President Biden basically put out a political hit on the Supreme Court last night, hoping that his deranged followers take him up on it.
00:35:06.280And so for the purposes of what they end up doing to fix their political problem now, they view the law as advisory.
00:35:24.180And that's creating outrage from the left, right?
00:35:27.440Supreme Court justices are going over SEAL Team 6 scenarios.
00:35:34.480President Trump was in power for four years without any of these overreaches they're reaching for right now.
00:35:42.380Chief Justice Roberts said those arguments about SEAL Team 6s are fanciful.
00:35:47.120There's all sorts of other checks and balances in place, including the 25th Amendment, et cetera, to deal with presidents and those down beneath them who go off on a fanciful flight like that.
00:36:00.640Just in closing, what are the two most egregious legal overreaches of this White House and executive branch that come to mind when they're saying that the Trump regime is going to overreach?
00:36:13.960They didn't in the past. What are the two most egregious examples where they've gone out over the skis?
00:36:20.260Yeah, I think the first is the most brazen constitutional abuse in the history of the United States.
00:36:24.340That is the president opening the border and basically losing control purposely of the sovereignty of the United States for a political program to import more potential voters, which we're catching him day in and day out trying to get to vote for President Biden.
00:36:38.680In fact, we'll be dropping some bombshell video evidence on that in coming days.
00:36:43.680And that's his plan to get elected on the backs of illegal aliens that he opened the border for.
00:36:48.340And then the second is the complete turn of the law enforcement, federal, state and local working in coordination against political opponents, not only in President Trump or its most pronounced.
00:36:57.280And by the way, I don't know many kings who have spent this much time in courtrooms or this much time paying legal fees or had their home raided by jackbooted thugs by Jack Smith to search Melania's bedroom.
00:37:08.880It is outrageous. These comparisons in being a king when he is nothing more than a complete victim of this weaponization.
00:37:15.640And he is staying in this fight because America is worth saving.
00:37:18.460And he's showing not only the country, but the entire world, how flagrant and reckless out of control this senile and corrupt regime and illegitimate administration is.
00:37:30.480Yeah, Mike, how you're a patriot. You're a constitutional expert.
00:37:33.920Very professional, as Heritage always is, following within the rule of law, within the Constitution, telling the truth and talking truth to power.
00:37:45.600We're going to show a quick clip here and then bring in Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation.
00:37:51.520Just how clarifying this is about the 60 election, to the extent there's some activating small D Democratic energy that can be brought out of what I think is a genuinely appalling move by the court.
00:38:06.480I wonder if you feel the same way about that.
00:38:10.300They might as well have added, by the way, please Google Project 2025, because we are essentially authorizing and not just authorizing, really sort of calling on Donald Trump.
00:38:21.160So they repeatedly talk about bold and decisive action.
00:38:23.920What bold and decisive action do they have in mind?
00:38:26.480Probably the exact same bold and decisive action the Heritage Foundation has in mind.
00:38:36.400And what I think they're saying to the American people is that if we get, we, this Leonard Leo Sixx, get our preferred president back, we are going to encourage him to break the boundaries of the law, to push it to the limit, to feel free, to even use violence, to use mass incarceration.
00:38:56.720Do whatever you need to do to take the bold and decisive action that we repeatedly have said is necessary for the function of the presidency to get the agenda done.
00:39:05.840And we'll protect you and we'll let you know, Donald Trump, when you've gone too far.
00:39:12.760This is a clarion call to every American.
00:39:17.340By the way, that debate is like 34 felony counsel and it does not matter anymore.
00:39:23.080All that matters is that you do not allow the person back into office who will use this power that he's been given by this court, this imperial court, to implement that agenda they wrote down and published because they know that no one will stop them except voters.
00:39:40.280Welcome back to the world room, Dave Bratt sitting in with Stephen K. Bannon and team.
00:39:49.500Yesterday, we had Mike Davis on who gave one of the most profound statements.
00:39:54.780The left, who you just heard talking in this clip, cannot believe there are actual constitutional folks left in this country who actually do believe in the rule of law and the Constitution.
00:40:10.540And they really cannot believe that there are people who still believe in the Judeo-Christian West and in the God of the Bible.
00:40:17.460And the majority is starting to speak, right?
00:40:23.060The minority, the MSNBCs, the CNN talking heads are starting to discover that they are not the majority, right?
00:40:32.100And the one thing the Constitution does is favors majority rule with minority rights.
00:40:38.540That's what makes us a republic instead of mob rule and a democracy.
00:40:42.240But minority rights does not give the minority power to run our lives.
00:40:48.140And so on these most critical times and critical issues concerning the Constitution, there is no one better in this world.
00:40:55.240There's no better man, a Christian friend for time, someone who's a fierce follower of the Constitution.
00:41:02.180It's our honor to welcome Kevin Roberts to the show.
00:41:06.040And, Kevin, if you just want to freewheel it and respond to those clips and tell folks what the Heritage Foundation is doing to protect the rule of law and to protect individuals in this great country.
00:41:35.880We ought to be really encouraged by what happened yesterday.
00:41:38.860And in spite of all of the injustice, which, of course, friends and audience of this show, of our friend Steve know, we are going to prevail.
00:41:46.860Number two, to the point of the clips and, of course, your preview of the fact that I am an early American historian and love the Constitution, that Supreme Court ruling yesterday on immunity is vital.
00:41:58.100And it's vital for a lot of reasons, but I would go to Federalist No. 70.
00:42:02.700If people in the audience are looking for something to read over Independence Day weekend, in addition to rereading the Declaration of Independence, read Hamilton's No. 70, because there, along with some other essays, in some other essays, he talks about the importance of a vigorous executive.
00:42:18.300You know, former congressman, the importance of Congress doing its job, but we also know the importance of the executive being able to do his job.
00:42:28.360And can you imagine, Dave Bratt, any president, put politics off to the side, any president having to second-guess, triple-guess every decision they're making in their official capacity?
00:42:39.160You couldn't have the republic that you just described.
00:42:42.540But number three, let me speak about the radical left.
00:42:45.580You and I have both been parts of faculties and faculty senates and understand that the left has taken over our institutions.
00:42:52.580The reason that they are apoplectic right now, the reason that so many anchors on MSNBC, for example, are losing their minds daily is because our side is winning.
00:43:04.680And so I come full circle in this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.
00:44:18.360The left is viewing this all in terms of politics.
00:44:21.240I think you would have a different view on the matter.
00:44:24.000And so why don't you lead us through a quick tutorial on what this court is up to and why it's so important for our constitutional republic.
00:44:34.040I'm going to take a step back from the politics, Dave, and actually answer your question as a historian of the early republic and say,
00:44:42.220if you take a look at the entire session of this Supreme Court,
00:44:46.700I understand that there are a couple of decisions and a couple of opinions by a couple of particular justices that might be a little troubling.
00:44:53.720But take a step back from that and look at it as a whole.
00:44:57.560What this session is about is restoring ordered liberty to this republic.
00:45:02.600That's an academic statement from an academic to an academic,
00:45:05.940but to an audience that I know is very well studied of the early republic.
00:45:10.520And the reason this is important is because it's getting us closer back to what our founders,
00:45:15.540primarily George Washington himself, wanted this republic to be.
00:45:19.420And that was this unique and noble objective that somehow, some way,
00:45:24.780this pluralistic republic would be able to balance two competing goods on the one side, liberty, and on the other side, order.
00:45:32.660In other words, as you understand so well, Dave,
00:45:35.580our definition of freedom is not the freedom to do whatever the heck we want, but the freedom to do what we ought.
00:45:41.660That is to say, it confers a moral obligation to our fellow Americans and to the republic.
00:45:47.100On the other side, we also believe in order.
00:45:50.500We believe that, in fact, there should be a government.
00:47:19.080And I think that hints to the 40- or 50-year project in academia where they have gutted Judeo-Christian religion cannot be taught whatsoever.
00:47:30.920There's this supposed separation of church and state.
00:47:34.000But even more problematic, there's no morality whatsoever.
00:47:39.200If you're in a K-12 school, there's no moral system that's taught.
00:47:42.960And so what's the role of the Heritage Foundation in your messaging on the absolute necessity of having a strong moral people to continue this great republic?
00:47:56.160The Heritage Foundation would lean on Alexis de Tocqueville, who 200 years ago said, to paraphrase him,
00:48:02.640if you have a problem with politics in the United States, don't look at the structure of government as the problem.
00:48:09.140In fact, America's constitutional republic is about as close to perfect as you can get on this side of heaven.
00:48:15.680But instead, look in the mirror, which was his way of saying that the only way you can secure the promises of that constitutional structure is if you live a life in virtue.
00:48:26.540And one of the key ways, the key way, we believe in the Judeo-Christian tradition, to live a life of virtue is to know God.
00:48:35.320And obviously, in the United States, we're religiously pluralistic.
00:48:38.240People can worship as they would like.
00:48:40.580They can go to the church of their choice.
00:48:42.200But we're all united by not just our monotheism, Dave, as you know, but by the belief, as the ancient Hebrews showed us in Jerusalem,
00:48:50.980that God's law can, in fact, be a huge influence on the civil laws that we pass, all with the freedom for people to practice as they would like.
00:49:01.020All of that to say, one of the main problems, in fact, I would argue the main problem facing the United States as it enters this really pivotal period is that we have a decline in religiosity.
00:49:15.120And I tell not just broad audiences, but even conservative audiences around the country that if you want to save this country, there is going to have to be a third great awakening.
00:49:24.580We've had two in our country's history.
00:49:27.460And for people who don't like the sound of that because they don't like organized religion, it's the only way we're going to be able to save this republic.
00:49:37.920And just so I don't get in trouble with media matters or whatever on this supposed separation of church and state, the founders were very clear.
00:49:45.160They don't want any particular church running the government.
00:49:47.980Right. But as I said earlier, you know, we we do want majority rule.
00:49:54.780And the majority of this country has been the Judeo-Christian tradition in terms of morality.
00:50:01.020And we've had a pretty good track record.
00:50:04.120Right. Under President Trump, we had peace and prosperity for four years until the China virus, et cetera.
00:50:11.640And the American people, I think, now are starting to feel a hunger for that.
00:50:16.500Right. But what we don't want is minority rule.
00:50:19.580Right. And so we still want absolute minority rights to religion of your choice.
00:50:26.520No, God, our God in the Judeo-Christian West doesn't put his thumb down and coerce us to faith.
00:50:31.300It's freely chosen because he's offering his love.
00:50:48.600And the conversation we're having now, Dave, about the importance of faith, of course, is predicated upon this this great and almost unique aspect of the United States,
00:50:57.640which is that we believe in religious liberty so fervently that we believe our fellow Americans can choose to have no religion or to have the religion of their choice.
00:51:06.220The radical left tries to eliminate that entirely, which is another way of saying they're trying to eliminate the key aspect of what it is to be an American day to day.
00:51:15.080Yep, you just hit pure gold right there, Kevin.
00:51:20.980We're going to be back with Kevin Roberts, Ph.D., American history, president of the Heritage Foundation, scholar, statesman.
00:51:29.100And we're going to hit that gold in three seconds.