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00:01:34.240Welcome. It is Verdict with Ted Cruz, Week in Review. Ben Ferguson with you, and here are the stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week.
00:01:41.780First up, the Supreme Court gives a major win to President Trump, that he actually has the authority to fire whoever he wants. We break that down.
00:01:50.380Also, there was a 4th of July message from the president that was about hope, and then there was a grim outlook of America from Mondani.
00:01:58.080Why did the Democrats choose him to be their mouthpiece? We explain it.
00:02:02.000And finally, there's a big fight over birthright citizenship, and the Supreme Court gave their ruling.
00:02:07.960So what did they decide, and what does it mean for the future going forward?
00:02:12.060It's the Week in Review, and it starts right now.
00:02:14.820All right, so Senator, let's talk about some of the victories, and one of them was a very interesting case.
00:02:20.820It's about the president having the ability to fire people, and this was one of those that maybe wasn't on a lot of people's radar screen, but it's a really important case.
00:02:30.720Well, let's start with two decisions, and this is a big victory, Trump versus Slaughter and Trump versus Cook.
00:02:37.140And it dealt with the ability of the president to fire people in his administration.
00:02:43.440So almost 100 years ago, the court decided a case called Humphrey's Executor.
00:02:49.820Humphrey's Executor, actually 91 years ago, the court concluded that the president cannot fire a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.
00:03:00.720uh and the federal trade commission was set up as a so-called independent agency it was an agency
00:03:07.800with three commissioners appointed by the president confirmed by the senate from the majority party
00:03:13.260and two commissioners appointed by the president confirmed by the senate from that minority party
00:03:19.360and and the so-called independent agencies arose uh coming out of the woodrow wilson era coming
00:03:27.040out of the progressive era as a way to limit presidential power and humphrey's executor said
00:03:33.160the president doesn't have the ability to fire an ftc commissioner without cause well in in my view
00:03:42.460humphrey's executor was wrong the day it was decided 91 years ago and it has been wrong every
00:03:49.700day for nine decades since then why because under the constitution the constitution the first three
00:03:56.680articles of the Constitution. Article 1, vest all legislative power in the Congress of the United
00:04:02.300States. Article 2, vest all executive power in the President of the United States. And Article 3,
00:04:11.360vest all judicial power in the judiciary. What Humphrey's executor did is severely limit
00:04:18.380the President's Article 2 authority over the executive branch. Anyone in government,
00:04:23.760you are either in one of those three buckets. You're either a legislative official. I'm a
00:04:29.900legislative official. I'm elected by the people of Texas to represent them in the Senate. I'm in
00:04:34.420the legislature. I'm in Article I. You could be a judicial official. That is appointed by the
00:04:39.440president, confirmed by the Senate. You're a judge with life tenure adjudicating cases. That's in
00:04:44.360Article III. Everyone else is in Article II. Article II is the executive, and under the
00:04:50.900constitution the president has authority over the executive humphrey's executor said no no you don't
00:04:57.200there could be someone that works for the executive and yet somehow congress has taken over
00:05:02.340the ability of the president to control that person well when president trump came in in the
00:05:08.700second term he fired two fdc directors commissioners rather one of which was rebecca
00:05:17.600slaughter rebecca slaughter is a democrat she was one of the five fdc commissioners and he fired
00:05:24.320her he said you know what i just want republican commissioners i'm not appointing democrat
00:05:28.280commissions now he did that knowing it would prompt a legal challenge and anticipating that
00:05:34.960that it would be a legal challenge he would prevail in i will tell you i've said publicly
00:05:39.500multiple times for for a long time trump was going to prevail and you know as i talked to
00:05:46.600reporters, they'd say, well, what do you think about this case? I said, Trump's going to win,
00:05:50.220and he's going to win because Humphrey's executor was wrong. The president has the
00:05:55.040authority over the executive branch, and I believe the court is going to overrule Humphrey's
00:06:01.020executor. Well, this week, that prediction came true. By the way, we talk on this podcast a lot
00:06:06.740about the predictions we make, and the vast majority of the predictions we make come true,
00:06:12.320and and we hold ourselves accountable when they come true we lay them out when they don't come
00:06:16.440true we lay them out in this instance Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion
00:06:22.020he was joined by Justice Alito Justice Gorsuch Justice Kavanaugh Justice Barrett and Justice
00:06:30.820Thomas in part so it was a 6-3 decision and the court overturned Humphrey's executor said the
00:06:37.380president can fire an FTC commission. That's a big victory. That's a big victory for presidential
00:06:44.900authority. That's a big victory for the text of the Constitution. That's a big victory for the
00:06:49.940original understanding of the Constitution. Now, here's kind of a weird wrinkle. There was another
00:06:57.560case that was cook versus trump so lisa cook was a federal reserve uh governor yeah and trump also
00:07:10.160fired lisa cook now interestingly enough look you would think the same principle should apply
00:07:16.920that if trump can fire an ftc commissioner he ought to be able to fire uh a federal reserve
00:07:26.180governor well you'd be wrong on that uh the court by a vote of five to four held that trump could
00:07:32.940not fire lisa cook that the federal reserve was different and and it was a different majority
00:07:38.140chief justice roberts wrote both opinions which did not surprise me trump versus cook was joined
00:07:44.640roberts joined by justice sotomayor justice kagan justice kavanaugh and justice ketanji brown
00:07:52.680jackson so it was five four now clarence thomas dissented he called the ruling incorrect uh he
00:07:59.340pointed out that that it was inconsistent with the slaughter decision i gotta say this did not
00:08:05.240surprise me at all and and and indeed i i had predicted humphrey's executors would be overturned
00:08:12.460but at the same time the court would be reluctant to accord the president carte blanche over the
00:08:21.140Federal Reserve. And in my view, look, Chief Justice Roberts had different distinctions about
00:08:26.620the statute of the Federal Reserve. I actually think those distinctions did not matter. This
00:08:32.380was, I believe, in significant respects, a results-driven outcome. I think at the end of
00:08:39.860the day, you did not have five justices that were willing to accede the power to the president to
00:08:47.700fire a Federal Reserve governor, because the role of the Federal Reserve with our currency,
00:08:53.140with our economy, was significant enough that they were reluctant to do it. That doesn't surprise me.
00:08:58.400The consequence of these two decisions, is Trump versus Cook pure and true to the Constitution?
00:09:07.340Probably not. But it is a fairly narrow exception to the much broader precedent,
00:09:14.440which is Trump versus Slaughter, which overrules Humphrey's executor and upholds the president's authority to fire executive branch employees at his discretion.
00:09:27.880That's going to obviously have big impact moving forward, right, over the next couple of years for the president as well.
00:11:21.440At the time, we had three Republican commissioners, two Democrat commissioners.
00:11:24.800And to be honest, to be a minority commissioner on the independent commission, it's kind of a weird job because you don't have the votes, but you can nonetheless express your views.
00:11:34.280You can dissent, you write opinions, you press back within the executive branch.
00:11:40.700I think the consequence of this decision is you're not going to see minority commissioners from the party out of power.
00:11:47.260You will see the independent agencies operate much like the rest of the executives.
00:11:52.380So just like in the Department of Labor, you don't have a Republican secretary of labor and then a Democrat secretary of labor who argues against it.
00:12:02.260Instead, you just have appointees of the president.
00:12:04.740I think you will see in the independent agencies the same sort of thing.
00:12:08.780They will just be appointees of the majority party.
00:12:11.940Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.
00:27:40.580The question is, what does birthright citizenship protect?
00:27:44.640and in particular are children of illegal aliens entitled to become U.S. citizens because they
00:27:50.880were born on U.S. soil. Now, as a policy matter, birthright citizenship, I think, is a very
00:27:56.880foolish policy. It is a policy that encourages illegal immigration. It rewards people for0.86
00:28:04.120breaking our laws. Most other countries on earth don't have that policy. If you break in illegally
00:28:09.900to another country, most other countries, if you have a kid there, that kid is not a citizen of
00:28:13.780that country. It also encourages things, as you noted, like birth tourism, where pregnant women
00:28:21.560will get on a plane and fly to America on a tourist visa simply to have a baby in America
00:28:27.160so that baby can become a U.S. citizen. That's a foolish policy. Now, there's a legal question0.84
00:28:34.780of how can you change birthright citizenship? And I talked a minute ago about the 14th Amendment.
00:28:43.780And the 14th Amendment says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
00:29:01.740This case turned on the phrase and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.
00:29:06.400what happened there have long been understood as really two potential ways to change current law
00:29:15.960and birthright citizenship the one way that is unquestionably permissible and valid would be a
00:29:21.880constitutional amendment that changes the constitution and makes clear that the child
00:29:27.020of an illegal immigrant born in america is not a u.s citizen i strongly support that i would vote for
00:29:32.080that that's good policy the second way and there's dispute among legal scholars is could
00:29:38.280congress pass a law saying the children of illegal immigrants born in america are not u.s citizens
00:29:44.940that is still a somewhat murky question donald trump explored a third avenue which is he signed
00:29:52.980an executive order that said i am ordering the children of of illegal immigrants are not u.s
00:30:00.120citizens if they're born in the United States. Now, to be honest, prior to Trump coming into
00:30:05.140office, I'd never heard anyone articulate a legal theory that that could be done by executive order.
00:30:11.320The Trump administration knew it was pushing the bounds of what's permissible. You are right
00:30:16.420that we've now had a robust debate on birthright citizenship and what a bad policy it is.
00:30:22.860Now, the court, unfortunately, ruled 5-4 that the executive order is invalid and that the children of illegal immigrants born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens.
00:30:54.860I wrote an amicus brief, actually two different amicus briefs in the court joined by multiple members of Congress, in which I asked the Supreme Court to restore the original meaning of the birthright citizenship clause.
00:31:09.540And I would encourage anyone interested in this issue, go read the brief that I wrote that laid out the original understanding of what the phrase subject to the jurisdiction thereof meant and that someone who was unlawfully present in the country, it did not fall within those parameters.
00:33:05.700So the laws in Mississippi say that absentee ballots have to be postmarked by Election Day,
00:33:11.960and they can be received up to five days after Election Day.
00:33:17.240And in this case, the RNC filed a lawsuit challenging that and saying that under the terms of federal election law, election day is understood to be the actual day of the election.
00:33:32.560And so the argument the RNC made is that you could not count ballots received up to five days after the election.
00:33:40.020Unfortunately, by a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court rejected that argument.
00:33:44.000And Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and the three liberals, concluded that Election Day is understood to mean the day when, quote, voting is complete, not when ballots are received.
00:33:58.560In other words, they upheld Mississippi's law, allowing ballots to be received up to five days after Election Day.
00:34:11.080but at the end of the day what it means is that the court has concluded federal law does not
00:34:19.840limit late received mail-in ballots the consequence of this is it's going to remain
00:34:26.340state by state red states can put real and meaningful limits can limit uh balloting can
00:34:32.880limit late received ballots mississippi can change their law but it also means that that blue states
00:34:39.140States like California can have the atrocity they had in their most recent election, their mayor's election in L.A., where they had votes coming in days, weeks, as much as a month later.
00:34:51.800Look, this decision is unfortunate, but I'll tell you what it really underscores.
00:34:56.820It underscores the need to pass the Save America Act.
00:34:59.880The Save America Act would protect against illegal voting.
00:35:05.000I'm an original sponsor of the Save America Act.