Bannon's War Room - WarRoom Battleground EP 827： Trump's Power And The Rule Of Law Cont.

00:00:00.000 This is the primal scream of a dying regime.

00:00:07.000 Pray for our enemies.

00:00:09.000 Because we're going medieval on these people.

00:00:12.000 I got a free shot at all these networks lying about the people.

00:00:17.000 The people have had a belly full of it.

00:00:19.000 I know you don't like hearing that.

00:00:20.000 I know you try to do everything in the world to stop that,

00:00:22.000 but you're not going to stop it.

00:00:23.000 It's going to happen.

00:00:24.000 And where do people like that go to share the big lie?

00:00:27.000 Mega Media.

00:00:29.000 I wish in my soul.

00:00:31.000 I wish that any of these people had a conscience.

00:00:34.000 Ask yourself, what is my task and what is my purpose?

00:00:38.000 If that answer is to save my country, this country will be saved.

00:00:44.000 War Room.

00:00:45.000 Here's your host, Stephen K. Banff.

00:00:53.000 Okay, welcome to the War Room.

00:00:56.000 We're having a kind of an encore presentation of something I think most of the audience hasn't seen.

00:01:01.000 Played part one last night.

00:01:03.000 If you haven't seen that, you can catch up with it.

00:01:05.000 We've got it.

00:01:06.000 We've got it in our inventory.

00:01:07.000 So you can go to worm.org and watch it.

00:01:09.000 It's Trump's power and the rule of law.

00:01:12.000 This is a documentary made by Frontline.

00:01:15.000 The PBS operation does all the different, you know, state of the art documentaries.

00:01:20.000 They normally do a great job professionally.

00:01:22.000 These are masterpieces as far as cutting, editing, camera work, interviews, etc.

00:01:27.000 Obviously, it's PBS, so it always has a slant, particularly it has a particularly anti-Trump and anti-MAGA slant.

00:01:34.000 That being said, this about this essential beating heart of this administration, which is about the article two powers of the president.

00:01:45.000 Remember, we talked about unified executive theory that he's both CEO, commander in chief, and chief magistrate, and he is going to basically push those out in this term, and he's doing that.

00:01:57.000 And that's where we have 175 or 200 court cases for the left realize, you know, action delayed is action denied, and they've been very smart about doing this.

00:02:06.000 So this is what this whole battle is about, and now you see the historic way they've kind of put it in context.

00:02:11.000 It's quite powerful, and they reached out, and they have the voices that they should.

00:02:16.000 They have, like, Mike Davis is all over this, Megyn Kelly, myself, others, and of course, a number of people from the center left and from the left.

00:02:23.000 And so I think you get a pretty good perspective.

00:02:25.000 It helps you, as war room watchers, you know the fights you've gone through, so now you're seeing how the other side presents it.

00:02:31.000 I think it's a very powerful tool for you, a very powerful lesson in what we call narrative warfare.

00:02:38.000 And so we're going to continue with the second part all the way through of Trump's power in the rule of law.

00:02:44.000 I want to thank our sponsor, Birch Gold.

00:02:47.000 If you take your phone out and text Bannon, B-A-N-N-O-N, at 989898, you get access totally free to the ultimate guide to invest in gold and precious metals in the age of Trump.

00:03:00.000 This special from PBS is about the age of Trump and, quite frankly, the intellectual framework of his second term, which is so powerful.

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00:03:15.000 So go to birchgold.com slash Bannon, the end of the dollar empire.

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00:03:23.000 Everything, all the content we're associated with Birch Gold is totally free for your perusal, study, and understanding.

00:03:29.000 Okay, we're going to take off now with the second part of Trump's power in the rule of law from PBS Frontline.

00:03:37.000 Here we go.

00:03:38.000 Outside Washington, Trump was also exercising power over the DOJ, targeting its most prominent office in New York City.

00:03:48.000 There are 93 U.S. students across the country.

00:03:54.000 But the Southern District of New York is the most prominent in the country, often called the Sovereign District.

00:04:01.000 Because for so long, the Southern District has acted with a kind of independence from Maine Justice in D.C. that other offices have only dreamed of matching.

00:04:11.000 The case, the prosecution of New York City's Democratic mayor, Eric Adams.

00:04:18.000 The charges against Eric Adams were brought by the Southern District of New York.

00:04:23.000 I think it's the first time that there's been a federal indictment against a sitting mayor of New York City.

00:04:30.000 And charged with corruption charges, with bribery, all high profile.

00:04:38.000 And Eric Adams went down to Mar-a-Lago to appeal to Trump.

00:04:43.000 And his lawyers made a case to the new team at the Justice Department that this case was interfering with Eric Adams' ability to help Trump in his mass deportation agenda.

00:04:56.000 And they made a deal.

00:04:59.000 The deal that they came up with was one of the most transparent quid pro quos that you could possibly imagine.

00:05:07.000 We made a deal to drop this prosecution, and in exchange, he's going to help us.

00:05:13.000 Emil Bove, the Acting Deputy Attorney General, sent a memorandum that the case should be dismissed so that Mayor Adams could help the President achieve his immigration agenda in New York City.

00:05:25.000 The pending prosecution has unduly restricted Mayor Adams' ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime.

00:05:34.000 And that's as nakedly political rationale as you could imagine.

00:05:38.000 What it says is that because Mayor Adams has said he's supporting the President's immigration agenda, he doesn't get prosecuted.

00:05:46.000 But presumably, if he had been an opponent of the President's immigration agenda, he would have been prosecuted.

00:05:53.000 Beauvais' memo went straight to the desk of Acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon.

00:05:59.000 Danielle Sassoon, who had been appointed by Trump, a conservative attorney, member of the Federalist Society, clerked for Supreme Court Justice Scalia.

00:06:10.000 She tried to convince DOJ, appealing directly and sort of going around Beauvais to Bondi and saying, this is not how criminal laws should be used.

00:06:20.000 The reasons advanced by Mr. Beauvais for dismissing the indictment are not ones I can in good faith defend.

00:06:27.000 That's when the issue catapulted into national prominence.

00:06:31.000 It's when conservative lawyers and the Department of Justice objected to this because they knew, they knew what this was.

00:06:38.000 They knew this was a quid pro quo and that was deeply unethical.

00:06:42.000 Because the law does not support a dismissal, I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations.

00:06:49.000 Very truly yours, Danielle R. Sassoon.

00:06:53.000 Danielle Sassoon was not the kind of person who you would have thought was going to stand up to Donald Trump, at least not politically.

00:07:01.000 But she believed in the rule of law and she saw this as a corruption and she said, I want no part of it.

00:07:08.000 Bondi refused to even meet with Sassoon.

00:07:12.000 In her letter, Danielle had said, if you're not going to meet with me, if you're not going to reconsider this, then I will resign.

00:07:19.000 She then got a letter from Beauvais, which said, OK, I accept your resignation.

00:07:25.000 The Justice Department will not tolerate the insubordination and apparent misconduct reflected in the approach that you and your office have taken in this matter.

00:07:34.000 I would say to Danielle Sassoon and the others that they work for the deputy attorney general, who works for the attorney general, who works for the president, who's elected by all Americans.

00:07:47.000 And if you don't like that, then get out of the Justice Department.

00:07:51.000 And many would.

00:07:54.000 Nearly a dozen prosecutors in New York and Washington resigned or were forced out.

00:07:59.000 People in the Department of Justice don't just up and resign.

00:08:04.000 When you resign, it's because it's either, in your view, immoral or it's a quid pro quo that you think is illegal.

00:08:14.000 And that is the reason that you saw so many career people, including conservatives, say, I can't stomach this.

00:08:22.000 Upheaval in the Justice Department.

00:08:24.000 A showdown between the Trump administration and its own Justice Department prosecutors.

00:08:29.000 They wanted prosecutors across the country to see that this time around, they would not be standing for any pushback.

00:08:37.000 That they would not be permitting offices, even the Southern District of New York, to push back against main justice.

00:08:43.000 And that if you did stand up, that you would lose your careers.

00:08:48.000 It's all about sending the chilling effect across the department and across the country.

00:08:53.000 That sweeping federal corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams is now officially dead.

00:08:59.000 Mayor Adams denied there'd been a quid pro quo or that he'd done anything wrong.

00:09:04.000 But regardless of guilt or innocence, for the advocates of the unitary executive, Trump's decision was well within his power.

00:09:13.000 I think the criticism of Trump deciding not to prosecute Adams is way overblown.

00:09:18.000 The president and the Justice Department have the right to choose who to prosecute and not to prosecute.

00:09:24.000 The president says, don't prosecute this person.

00:09:27.000 That is not illegal or unconstitutional. That's certainly constitutional.

00:09:33.000 And presidents can do it for reasons that don't have to do with guilt or innocence.

00:09:38.000 The message out there to the public is, even if you've committed a serious crime,

00:09:44.000 if you support the administration politically, you can get off.

00:09:49.000 If you haven't, we'll throw the book at you.

00:09:51.000 But if you've supported the administration politically, you may get off.

00:09:54.000 It sends that message to the public at large.

00:09:59.000 From now on, there is no concept of an independent law enforcement function in this country.

00:10:05.000 It exists purely to carry out the personal will of the president.

00:10:11.000 The era that began with the disgrace of Richard Nixon and the forcing from office of a president

00:10:18.000 who sought to use the machinery of government on his own behalf,

00:10:22.000 that era is over very definitively.

00:10:28.000 Trump's transformation of the government and his use of presidential power would be far-reaching.

00:10:35.000 When Trump came into power, he was surrounded by ideologues

00:10:39.000 who have been nursing these theories for quite some time that are really quite extreme.

00:10:44.000 One of the principal ones is a man named Russell Vogt.

00:10:48.000 He is someone who is a self-described Christian nationalist

00:10:53.000 who has been around Washington for a long time.

00:10:57.000 He's seen how government works.

00:11:01.000 And he has an idea of really kind of radical changes he wants to implement.

00:11:06.000 And he's someone who knows how to do it.

00:11:09.000 My belief is that the president has to move executively as fast and as aggressively as possible

00:11:18.000 with a radical constitutional perspective to be able to dismantle that bureaucracy in their power centers.

00:11:27.000 Before the election, Vogt laid out his vision in a chapter he wrote for the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025,

00:11:34.000 a blueprint for Trump's return.

00:11:37.000 The great challenge confronting a conservative president

00:11:40.000 is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch.

00:11:45.000 He told us quite explicitly he wants to search out for pockets of independence from presidential control and stamp them out.

00:11:54.000 He's made no secret of the fact that he wants to wrest for the presidency more power over spending decisions away from Congress.

00:12:03.000 Trump and people around him understand what we have to do to get back to a constitutional republic.

00:12:08.000 We're going after the infrastructure and the plumbing and the wiring of the whole system.

00:12:15.000 We are not going to quit. We're not going to surrender. We're not going to take our foot off the gas pedal.

00:12:20.000 Now with Russell Vogt, the head of the powerful Office of Management and Budget,

00:12:26.000 Trump would take on departments Congress had authorized and funded,

00:12:30.000 starting with the agency that handled foreign aid, USAID.

00:12:36.000 President Donald Trump is calling for USAID to be shut down,

00:12:39.000 calling the organization that delivers aid to people around the world corrupt.

00:12:43.000 Many people see as frivolous if not outright wasteful spending.

00:12:47.000 Shutdown of USAID could mean less medicine for the sick and less food for starving families, including babies.

00:12:54.000 This is a power grab. You're watching the presidency turned into something much more imperial than we've seen for a very long time and maybe ever.

00:13:06.000 The Trump administration's efforts to reshape the federal government and its workforce.

00:13:10.000 USAID's workforce will be whittled down from about 14,000 employees to fewer than 300, a 98% cut.

00:13:19.000 Large chunks of USAID employees were placed on administrative leave and cut off from agency, email systems, and other databases.

00:13:28.000 We had hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in play around the world in ongoing programs.

00:13:35.000 All came to a dead stop.

00:13:38.000 Paul Martin, USAID's Inspector General, had spent decades in government, but had never seen anything like this.

00:13:46.000 People have dedicated their lives trying to make a difference at USAID.

00:13:51.000 And to sort of overnight, without any engagement, without any warning, it was a massive shock to the system.

00:13:58.000 Hundreds of workers at USAID are cleaning out their desks.

00:14:03.000 An emotional exodus at the former headquarters of USAID.

00:14:06.000 Recently fired federal workers were given just 15 minutes to clear out their desks.

00:14:11.000 I do think that USAID was the canary in the coal mine.

00:14:16.000 The speed and the rapidity at which this occurred was pretty breathtaking.

00:14:22.000 A senior official at USAID called it a mafia-like takeover.

00:14:27.000 It's less than 1% of the federal budget.

00:14:34.000 The fact that this was the very first agency they chose to target and force underscores that this is not a cost-cutting exercise.

00:14:42.000 It's an exercise in power.

00:14:44.000 It was a classic demonstration execution.

00:14:49.000 We'll kill one federal agency in order to terrify thousands of others.

00:14:54.000 When Congress establishes an agency by law, that's not optional.

00:15:02.000 That's a law.

00:15:03.000 And the agency exists and then has to discharge the responsibilities that Congress has given it.

00:15:09.000 So, when the president tries just to shut down an agency that has statutory responsibilities,

00:15:16.000 that will in many cases be inconsistent with the law.

00:15:21.000 What's the point of having the authority to enact laws, which is Congress's big power,

00:15:27.000 if the president can then disregard whatever they enact?

00:15:33.000 Go back to the unitary theory of the executive.

00:15:36.000 The president of the United States, as chief executive, has the ability to make personnel decisions and to fire anybody.

00:15:43.000 You don't have permanent employment in the federal government.

00:15:46.000 USAID was a perfect political target from their point of view.

00:15:51.000 A lot of Americans don't feel all that aggrieved by that.

00:15:54.000 And so, yeah, it was a test case and wanted to see how far he could go.

00:16:01.000 As he cleared the ranks at USAID, there was one more target, the agency's independent watchdog.

00:16:08.000 I, too, received the two-sentence email thanking me for my service but dismissing me as inspector general.

00:16:15.000 Dear Paul, on behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as inspector general is terminated effective immediately.

00:16:25.000 Thank you for your service.

00:16:27.000 No explanation, no 30-day notice, no reasons.

00:16:31.000 It seems pretty clear a violation of the law.

00:16:37.000 You can fire inspectors general, but you have to notify the Senate.

00:16:41.000 You have to give 30 days notice.

00:16:42.000 He was like, yeah, I'm not going to do that.

00:16:44.000 From agencies all over Washington, 17 other inspectors general were purged.

00:16:51.000 The inspector general community has been a concept created by Congress to help Congress and the administration conduct meaningful, effective oversight of federal taxpayer spending and executive branch agencies.

00:17:08.000 We are Congress's eyes and ears.

00:17:11.000 When you dismiss 17 inspector generals, you've turned the system on its head.

00:17:17.000 The role of inspector general was created by Congress in response to the Watergate scandal.

00:17:23.000 And often Congress will ask IG offices to conduct investigations that Congress doesn't have the staff or the power or the ability to do because they're not housed inside these agencies.

00:17:34.000 So firing the IGs isn't just about creating a less transparent government, but also really cuts off a channel to Congress.

00:17:43.000 These inspector generals are a great example of these Watergate reforms that try to chip away at the unitary executive.

00:17:51.000 If the president can't fire them, then they don't have to listen to the president.

00:17:56.000 They don't have to take orders or direction from the president.

00:17:59.000 And that I think is really an affront to the idea of a unitary executive.

00:18:03.000 What he's doing is systematically removing any instrument of independent accountability in the government.

00:18:13.000 If Congress was healthy at all, it should rise up and say, our creations, we're going to protect our creations.

00:18:22.000 There really is no dissent, certainly within the Republican Party, which is what controls Washington.

00:18:30.000 Lawmakers are almost uniformly aligned behind the president right now.

00:18:34.000 And they also see that there's almost no upside to being publicly critical of the president.

00:18:40.000 This is not a usurpation of authority in any way. It's not a power grab.

00:18:45.000 I think they're doing what we've all expected and hoped and asked that they would do.

00:18:49.000 Congress under the Constitution has plenty of authority to fight for itself.

00:18:54.000 The founders wanted the president and Congress to fight.

00:18:59.000 What they did not anticipate was political parties.

00:19:02.000 The reason why Congress isn't fighting now, if people want Congress to fight more,

00:19:07.000 is that Congress is controlled by the same party as the president.

00:19:10.000 Congress, the majority of the House and Senate, probably agree with what the president's doing.

00:19:15.000 President Donald Trump is delivering on his promise to shake up the status quo in Washington.

00:19:20.000 I think all of us believe that we want to be good partners in making sure that the agenda that he campaigned on,

00:19:26.000 in which the American people voted for, is accomplished and delivered on.

00:19:31.000 The fact that the Congress of the United States is silent is unforgivable.

00:19:39.000 The system created under the Constitution was one of separated powers,

00:19:44.000 under which each branch serves as a check and balance on the other branches.

00:19:56.000 Right now in America, one could not say that we have the separation of powers

00:20:03.000 that was envisioned by our founders and written into the Constitution of the United States.

00:20:11.000 Without a functioning Congress, without an independent Justice Department,

00:20:24.000 without inspectors general watching things,

00:20:27.000 literally the only real check on a president's power at this point would be the courts.

00:20:34.000 It would be up to the lawyers to confront Trump.

00:20:38.000 When I saw the dismantling of USAID, I said,

00:20:43.000 I'm going to sue, I'm going to go to court, I'm going to file a case,

00:20:48.000 I'm going to argue this is against the Constitution.

00:20:51.000 It's against what Congress has commanded.

00:20:54.000 No element of Donald Trump's attacks are going to go unmet.

00:21:01.000 We're going to litigate it and win, and we did.

00:21:04.000 President Trump was dealt not one, but three legal defeats in the span of just 90 minutes yesterday.

00:21:10.000 The legal challenges to the president's efforts to reshape the government mounting.

00:21:15.000 In the first months of the Trump administration, at this point there's almost 200 lawsuits that are on file.

00:21:22.000 And whether it's Democratic or Republican judges who are deciding them,

00:21:27.000 Donald Trump is losing the majority of the time.

00:21:31.000 The battle's significantly slowing down the president's efforts to downsize the government.

00:21:37.000 The lawyers are part of the problem. 0.99

00:21:39.000 These lawyers and these law firms are oftentimes partisan actors,

00:21:43.000 and they are coming up with plaintiffs to sabotage the president of the United States.

00:21:50.000 Trump would send a message to the lawyers,

00:21:53.000 attacking powerful law firms that had crossed him in the past.

00:21:57.000 We're going to sign some executive orders.

00:22:00.000 What they've done is just terrible.

00:22:04.000 And it should never be allowed to happen again.

00:22:08.000 He ordered the firm's security clearances revoked.

00:22:11.000 That they be denied entrance to all federal buildings.

00:22:14.000 Their government contracts canceled.

00:22:18.000 This is just gangster stuff.

00:22:21.000 I mean, it really is.

00:22:24.000 This is mob-style intimidation.

00:22:27.000 Because what it is saying, nakedly, is that I can essentially destroy the law firm.

00:22:38.000 And you're looking at about 15 different firms?

00:22:41.000 Uh, that or more, sir, yes.

00:22:43.000 Okay.

00:22:45.000 I am so impressed.

00:22:48.000 The power of what President Trump did.

00:22:51.000 I was stunned of how brilliantly thoughtful it was.

00:22:56.000 What the firms need to understand is that if I were their clients, I would probably find new attorneys.

00:23:04.000 Because if you've made it on one of these lists, you're probably not going to get a very good reception at the Trump administration for the next four years.

00:23:11.000 The law firm of Jenner and Block, this is a law firm that, as you know, employed Andrew Weissman after he came off of the Mueller investigation.

00:23:20.000 He is one of a number of reasons that we believe this executive order is warranted.

00:23:24.000 He's a bad guy.

00:23:26.000 That is really insidious.

00:23:29.000 That is saying that I'm going to target you if you take positions and bring cases in front of judges.

00:23:38.000 In order to have a functioning judiciary, you need to have lawyers who don't feel threatened by bringing good faith litigation.

00:23:46.000 This is an executive order that takes certain measures against Sussman Godfrey, given their previous activities.

00:23:52.000 These attacks on the nation's law firms are intended to put the individual firms out of business.

00:24:01.000 But then larger, to send a message to the nation's 1.2 million lawyers that they better never take a case representing a client against Donald Trump and his administration.

00:24:25.000 Some firms fought back.

00:24:27.000 Hundreds of firms denouncing the president's executive orders.

00:24:30.000 Some even won in court.

00:24:32.000 But the vast majority of the country's largest law firms stayed silent.

00:24:37.000 Some firms fighting back, while others are bending the knee to Trump.

00:24:41.000 By and large, the legal industry has kind of folded.

00:24:44.000 These orders are certainly unlawful, and a judge has already said so.

00:24:49.000 But it's very difficult for courts to really remedy the situation.

00:24:54.000 Because at the end of the day, even when a court says that an order like this is unlawful, everybody still knows that the law firm is persona non grata, in fact toxic, inside the administration.

00:25:11.000 Several of the firms have come to the White House seeking a way to avoid punishment.

00:25:16.000 Paul Weiss now reaching a deal with the president to get the president to drop the executive order against the firm.

00:25:23.000 After that was sent, they collapsed in their opposition.

00:25:27.000 And here's what I tell people, they're not that powerful.

00:25:31.000 This whole system has been so powerful and so overwhelming, they cratered the most powerful law firms in the country.

00:25:37.000 The word that largely defines the response is capitulation.

00:25:41.000 Five more law firms have now struck deals with the Trump administration.

00:25:46.000 It sent a message to the administration that this works, meaning do it again.

00:25:54.000 The law firms claimed the deals didn't threaten their independence, and denied there were payoffs to Trump.

00:26:01.000 Have you noticed that lots of law firms have been signing up with Trump?

00:26:06.000 They give you $100 million, and then they announce that, but we have done nothing wrong.

00:26:11.000 And I agree, they've done nothing wrong.

00:26:12.000 Well, what the hell? They give me a lot of money, considering they've done nothing wrong.

00:26:17.000 Altogether, they agreed to give nearly $1 billion in legal services to causes that the firms and Trump support.

00:26:26.000 All in an effort to sort of appease him and keep him from criticizing them or targeting them.

00:26:31.000 I want these lawyers to understand that this is not the George W. Bush Republican Party.

00:26:37.000 We're not going to turn the other cheek.

00:26:40.000 The American people elected President Trump with a broad mandate.

00:26:44.000 So, time to deliver.

00:26:46.000 This July, there is a global summit of BRICS nations in Rio de Janeiro, the block of emerging superpowers, including China, Russia, India, and Persia, are meeting with the goal of displacing the United States dollar as the global currency.

00:27:15.000 They're calling this the Rio Reset.

00:27:19.000 As BRICS nations push forward with their plans, global demand for U.S. dollars will decrease, bringing down the value of the dollar in your savings.

00:27:27.000 While this transition won't not happen overnight, but trust me, it's going to start in Rio.

00:27:33.000 The Rio Reset in July marks a pivotal moment when BRICS objectives move decisively from a theoretical possibility towards an inevitable reality.

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00:31:05.840 All American people should be worried about what we're seeing.

00:31:19.520 I know lawyers are not the most favored group in society, but lawyers are who you go to

00:31:26.460 when you need your rights defended.

00:31:28.720 Lawyers are who you go to when you need to access the courts.

00:31:31.800 And I think it begins with lawyers, but this kind of trend will expand across the board.

00:31:36.420 He is extending his reach really far, much further than most presidents have.

00:31:44.760 And it's not just on politics.

00:31:47.260 What's striking is how much he wants to impose his point of view on different aspects of society.

00:31:55.020 He is trying to reshape the country in a way.

00:31:57.520 It's not just whether the USAID should be an agency or not.

00:32:03.140 It's what should be played at the Kennedy Center.

00:32:05.760 President Trump now is the chair of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

00:32:09.360 Trump plans to fire Kennedy Center board members, appoint himself as chair.

00:32:13.700 It's what we should call a body of water off our southern shores.

00:32:16.860 President Trump is calling it the Gulf of America as opposed to the Gulf of Mexico.

00:32:21.700 It's what the Associated Press can put in its style guide.

00:32:24.520 Trump has barred the Associated Press from the Oval Office and White House press pool.

00:32:28.760 It's what is taught in the classrooms at Columbia.

00:32:31.740 Columbia University will comply with policy changes demanded by the Trump administration.

00:32:36.520 Trump calling for Harvard to lose its tax-exempt status.

00:32:39.840 He wants to have everybody defer to him.

00:32:43.080 Paramount announcing they will settle President Trump's lawsuit over a 60-minute interview for $16 million.

00:32:50.160 And he is accomplishing a lot.

00:32:52.660 And a lot of his people are very happy about that.

00:32:58.420 Here's what we know.

00:33:00.520 If you take power and exert it, this system's not so tough.

00:33:05.560 You know why?

00:33:06.460 They're all gutless cowards.

00:33:08.000 The university administrators, they're not that tough.

00:33:11.080 The big law firms, they're not that tough.

00:33:13.540 The media, look who's cratered.

00:33:15.860 How many times?

00:33:16.840 Look how they're settling with Trump.

00:33:18.360 They're not tough.

00:33:19.080 We're resilient, we're anti-fragile, and we're tough.

00:33:23.540 The people around Trump are battle-hardened, okay?

00:33:26.240 You're not going to scare us.

00:33:27.880 And we're not going to stop.

00:33:29.640 And what we know is you guys are a bunch of ****.

00:33:32.200 You will crater.

00:33:33.720 PBS is going to crater.

00:33:35.540 You don't believe, actually, at your core in what you're trying to do.

00:33:38.840 And you'll fold, like the law firms, like the universities, like the media, like all of these institutions.

00:33:44.920 You will fold.

00:33:45.900 Because we're relentless, and we're not going to stop.

00:33:56.000 PBS and NPR sued Trump over his attempts to defund them.

00:34:01.300 Harvard also refused to back down.

00:34:03.640 And many of Trump's efforts were blocked by courts.

00:34:08.600 But he has been pressing ahead.

00:34:11.120 Our golden age has only just begun.

00:34:14.220 We will never give in.

00:34:15.700 We will never give up.

00:34:16.780 We will never back down.

00:34:18.640 We will never, ever surrender.

00:34:21.280 We will fight, fight, fight, and we will win, win, win.

00:34:25.300 Together, we will make America powerful again.

00:34:29.740 This is new territory for people.

00:34:36.360 And a lot of people are very courageous in their heads when they imagine themselves facing the government.

00:34:42.100 But then when the actual reality is looming in front of them, when the actual crushing weight of the federal government comes upon you,

00:34:49.700 or the thought that you could be publicly named and shamed in a way that could bring threats and intimidation to your family,

00:34:57.320 an awful lot of people are going to say, well, somebody else can take on this thing.

00:35:01.100 I've lived in Washington my whole life.

00:35:10.340 I've never seen people in Washington scared the way they are now.

00:35:13.660 I've never seen people in Washington as scared as they are now.

00:35:17.720 They are scared to talk.

00:35:19.880 They are scared to pop their head up.

00:35:22.380 They are scared to be noticed.

00:35:24.320 They don't want to be on his radar screen because they fear that he will use his power against them.

00:35:34.160 When I call people to talk to them and quote them in a story, they say, hey, I can't be on the record anymore.

00:35:40.280 I have a kid who works in the government.

00:35:42.460 I have a brother who has a federal grant.

00:35:46.440 My law firm doesn't want me to talk.

00:35:49.460 I'm scared, they say.

00:35:51.460 I don't want to be prosecuted.

00:35:52.920 But I've never seen that before in Washington.

00:35:55.260 It's never been a situation where adversaries of the president, Democrat or Republican,

00:35:59.900 felt afraid in the same way we're seeing now across the board to speak their mind.

00:36:10.080 He was attacking government agencies, overpowering Congress, threatening law firms, the press, and more.

00:36:19.120 Trump's far-reaching use of presidential power was leading to confrontation with the Supreme Court.

00:36:26.380 I think the administration is seeking an opportunity to create a constitutional crisis.

00:36:34.720 By that, I mean a crisis to test the scope of the judicial power to control the executive.

00:36:41.720 That's why the attack on the rule of law is really Trump's focus now.

00:36:46.280 Trump's test case, an unprecedented campaign against illegal immigration.

00:36:51.260 A massive immigration enforcement crackdown has led to hundreds of arrests in a matter of days.

00:36:58.760 The administration claimed it was targeting violent gangs and criminals.

00:37:03.560 You had President Trump rounding up international gangbangers.

00:37:08.720 They are robbing, kidnapping, raping, torturing, and murdering Americans. 0.99

00:37:14.020 The president has absolute statutory and constitutional authority to get them the hell out of our country.

00:37:22.120 But many others were being swept up, too.

00:37:24.960 Immigrants with legal status or no criminal history are also being detained and deported.

00:37:29.900 Many of the deported men lack criminal records in the United States, according to ICE.

00:37:33.520 The families of some of those men deported say not all of them are gang members.

00:37:38.300 How do you know that this person in front of you actually is a gang member?

00:37:41.180 What if they say they're not?

00:37:43.760 Do they have a right to some kind of process before a judge and say, mistaken identity, I'm just a barber, I'm just a soccer player.

00:37:51.400 This tattoo you say is a gang tattoo is just my favorite team.

00:37:54.960 What's your proof?

00:37:58.260 They are deporting people they've said are very dangerous gang members.

00:38:03.120 But everyone in the country who's accused of something has basic rights of due process, which in this case would mean a hearing.

00:38:11.180 To determine whether they are in fact members of this gang and whether they are subject to deportation under the law.

00:38:18.840 That's the process that the administration has tried to short circuit.

00:38:23.040 He's saying, all I'm doing is deporting criminal gangs or I'm taking action against murderers and rapists.

00:38:34.620 And it's very hard to get people worked up over concepts like due process, a legal term, right?

00:38:41.580 But you know who does get very, very agitated about due process?

00:38:46.760 Judges.

00:38:47.220 In an emergency lawsuit, ACLU lawyers presented federal judge Jeb Boesberg with startling evidence.

00:38:56.320 The government was racing to deport alleged gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador without any judicial review.

00:39:05.040 Trump was rushing people onto planes.

00:39:07.380 Judge Boesberg said, slow down, temporary restraining order, let's figure out, let's freeze the status quo into place, let's figure out whether this is legal or not.

00:39:19.060 You need to turn those planes around, bring these people back to the United States. 1.00

00:39:23.280 And the Trump administration did not turn the planes around.

00:39:32.180 They handed more than 100 people off to a prison in El Salvador.

00:39:36.880 So that raises the question, not only was this legal to do in the first place, but did they violate a court order?

00:39:43.620 That was an extraordinary act.

00:39:45.380 Virtually all presidents throughout history have acknowledged that you have to obey court orders, that if you disagree with a court order, it's not optional to refuse to comply with it.

00:39:57.180 The answer is to appeal.

00:40:00.940 It's very close to just the kind of clash that everybody's fearing between the executive branch and the judicial branch.

00:40:12.520 It seems possible that for the first time in the United States' history, a president might just say, he's not going to listen to the courts.

00:40:23.160 I'm happy those planes landed in El Salvador because the president had a constitutional duty to ignore that lawless and dangerous order and land those planes in El Salvador. 0.76

00:40:35.300 This Boesberg, the clown, thinks he's the commander-in-chief. 0.99

00:40:39.160 He thinks he can order the president to turn around military planes carrying terrorists.

00:40:46.020 What the hell is Jeb Boesberg thinking that he thinks he can expose and sabotage an ongoing military operation?

00:40:54.500 Judge Boesberg does not have the jurisdiction to do what he did.

00:40:58.220 He did not have the power to do what he did, and what he did was lawless.

00:41:01.400 The judge in this case is essentially trying to say that the president doesn't have the executive authority to deport foreign terrorists from our American soil.

00:41:12.600 Judge Boesberg fired back, ruling there was probable cause the administration was guilty of criminal contempt.

00:41:20.940 And Boesberg wasn't alone.

00:41:22.460 The immigration standoff is heating up between the Trump administration and the courts.

00:41:28.000 Court after court, ruling against Trump.

00:41:30.900 U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy ruled the U.S. government must retain custody of migrants.

00:41:35.780 Challenging the deportations.

00:41:37.700 A federal judge appointed by President Trump blocked the administration from summarily removing migrants in South Texas.

00:41:44.320 Finding the administration was violating people's due process rights.

00:41:48.060 A federal judge says the Trump administration violated a court order for again sending migrants to a country they're not from without due process.

00:41:56.540 The Trump administration is now formally complying with the Supreme Court order to bring back Abrego Garcia.

00:42:03.000 This is a victory for due process. It's a victory for the Constitution.

00:42:08.280 The American public may not even know it as due process.

00:42:12.120 But they know that whenever the government comes against them, whether it be in a criminal proceeding, a civil proceeding, where the government intends to take away your property or your liberty, that you're entitled to be heard.

00:42:29.140 The Trump administration does not want to give those people the opportunity simply to make their case to the federal government that they're not members of the gang at all.

00:42:47.400 That's about as rudimentary and fundamental to America as anything that I can conceive of.

00:42:55.560 Despite the challenges, Trump and his team haven't let up.

00:43:01.580 And the question should be, why is a judge trying to protect terrorists who have invaded our country over American citizens?

00:43:09.560 The broadest theme that arises from it is a White House that is unafraid to provoke legal challenges and enjoys the fight as an end to itself.

00:43:25.180 Is not embarrassed by the prospect that it might be accused of doing something illegal, but revels in it.

00:43:31.180 We're not stopping. I don't care what the judges think. I don't care what the left thinks. We're coming.

00:43:35.740 I deplore the rhetoric that suggests that anyone in the government doesn't have to follow the Constitution or the laws or obey court orders.

00:43:46.440 I think it would be a dangerous path for our country if any president starts saying they're going to act outside the Constitution.

00:43:54.420 And so I hope it's just careless rhetoric.

00:43:56.560 We have bad judges. We have very bad judges. And these are judges that shouldn't be allowed.

00:44:02.420 I think they, I think at a certain point you have to start looking at what do you do when you have a rogue judge.

00:44:08.260 The Trump administration is escalating its fight with federal judges.

00:44:12.160 Trump suggested that the judges, including one he appointed, were backroom hustlers.

00:44:17.420 He went after the Federalist Society, a longtime ally that had helped him select judicial appointments.

00:44:23.900 Why is he attacking the Federalist Society when it was an ally in the first term?

00:44:28.540 Trump wrote on Truth Social,

00:44:29.920 I am so disappointed in the Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on judicial nominations.

00:44:35.700 It seems like what Trump wants is just judges who will agree with him.

00:44:40.200 Loyal to him.

00:44:40.820 Loyal to him.

00:44:41.620 You have to think that it's a knowing effort on the part of Trump to delegitimize the power of the judiciary.

00:44:50.840 I mean, what he's basically also saying is that there is no such thing as neutral law or principled law.

00:44:57.260 It's all just politics.

00:44:59.080 And that's basically Trump's view of judges.

00:45:01.560 This radical left lunatic of a judge, a troublemaker and agitator, was not elected president.

00:45:08.780 This judge should be impeached. 0.61

00:45:11.620 This is unequivocally, indisputably, an attack by the president on the independence of the federal judiciary, pure and simple.

00:45:26.920 Amidst the attacks, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued an extraordinary rebuke to the president.

00:45:33.180 Even Chief Justice John Roberts, who doesn't enter the political fray very often, felt compelled within hours to put out his own statement saying,

00:45:51.660 you don't agree with his ruling, you go to the appeals court, you don't like the appeals court, you come to me, the Supreme Court, and we'll deal with it.

00:45:58.440 What he did there was lay down a marker.

00:46:01.540 Because what he said is, this isn't about Judge Bosberg.

00:46:04.260 It's not about a rogue judge the way the president would like it to be.

00:46:07.000 It's about the whole system.

00:46:08.180 And Roberts took that arrow for himself.

00:46:12.020 He was saying, it's about us.

00:46:14.080 It's about the system.

00:46:15.540 And do you respect the system?

00:46:19.180 Justice Roberts needs to remember that he is a federal judge.

00:46:23.300 He's not a politician.

00:46:24.280 And when judges take off their judicial robes and climb into the political arena and throw political punches, they can expect political counterpunches.

00:46:36.400 And so it's probably not a good idea for judges to make political statements like he does.

00:46:43.740 Now, Chief Justice Roberts, who had written that pivotal presidential immunity decision a year before, is the face of a court at a crossroads.

00:46:54.280 It's a little bit hard to reconcile Justice Roberts, who has claimed to stand for the balance of powers in our system, with the same man who wrote this decision granting Donald Trump's sweeping unfettered power.

00:47:10.760 And now it seems to me that with many of these actions that Trump is undertaking, he's seeking to test the Supreme Court.

00:47:17.420 Did you really mean it?

00:47:18.220 The last democratic institution that remains between us and the precipice of a constitutional crisis is the Supreme Court.

00:47:29.380 There have been more than 300 lawsuits filed against the Trump administration since he took office.

00:47:35.300 All the big cases are going to end up in front of the Supreme Court eventually.

00:47:39.220 These legal challenges are making the way up to the appellate process.

00:47:41.960 Some will land in the Supreme Court.

00:47:43.840 Chief Justice Roberts is on the hot seat because the judiciary doesn't have the powers of the purse and it doesn't have an army.

00:47:54.380 So the only thing it has is its own legitimacy.

00:47:58.540 And so they don't want to be in a position where they make a decision and Trump defies it.

00:48:05.180 The president has acted as prosecutor and judge, but he's going to have to understand at the end of the day that for the federal judiciary to yield to him,

00:48:19.640 would literally be to surrender its constitutional role to Donald Trump, that's simply never going to happen.

00:48:46.600 But the president and his advisers are betting that the Supreme Court will see it otherwise.

00:48:55.520 They want to get a lot of these challenges into the courts because they believe that the Supreme Court, with a conservative 6-3 makeup,

00:49:04.500 is a more friendly place to wager some of these fights over executive power.

00:49:08.320 And I think that a lot of the people around the president have a higher degree of confidence now

00:49:14.400 that the Supreme Court will rule in their favor and ultimately codify the expanse of presidential power.

00:49:20.460 There's nothing to compromise.

00:49:26.820 There's two different theories about what the Constitution says, what the framers had in mind, and what this country is.

00:49:34.880 It's going to build up to a crescendo.

00:49:37.600 One side's going to win and one side's going to lose.

00:49:40.500 Trump is not only not going to blink, he's going to win.

00:49:42.600 A big win for the Trump administration.

00:49:45.840 The Supreme Court slammed the brakes, saying no to nationwide injunctions.

00:49:50.860 And in the final days of the Supreme Court's term...

00:49:53.360 The Supreme Court potentially cleared the way for even greater presidential power.

00:49:58.500 Victories for now.

00:50:00.960 The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump administration's efforts to deport migrants to third countries.

00:50:06.180 The White House is claiming victory after the Supreme Court allowed the White House to move forward with the mass layoffs of federal workers.

00:50:14.560 The battle here may on the face be between Trump versus the courts or Trump versus the rule of law.

00:50:20.920 But this is the battle for what is going to be normal in America.

00:50:24.820 What are our norms?

00:50:26.620 What is our system of government that we are all going to subject ourselves to?

00:50:31.380 Do we have the rule of law or do we have royal decrees?

00:50:34.660 That's what's at stake here.

00:50:36.820 President Trump seems to be riding a major wave of momentum these past couple of weeks.

00:50:41.220 The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to move forward with its staffing cuts at the Department of Education.

00:50:48.120 The FBI is now investigating former FBI Director James Comey in conjunction with the genesis of the Russia investigation.

00:50:55.220 In Los Angeles, tensions flaring after President Trump deployed National Guard troops.

00:51:00.300 Our constitutional structure is definitely stressed.

00:51:03.720 Thanks for watching.

00:51:05.640 I'll discuss it on tomorrow's show, 10 a.m.

00:51:07.680 Eastern Daylight Time tomorrow.

00:51:08.880 See you back in the world.

00:51:09.580 See you back in the world.

00:51:15.880 Bye.

00:51:24.000 Bye.

00:51:24.160 Bye.

00:51:24.660 Thank you.

00:51:54.660 Thank you.

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Bannon's War Room - August 13, 2025

WarRoom Battleground EP 827： Trump's Power And The Rule Of Law Cont.

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