- The framers really assumed that there would be presidents operating in good faith with the best interest of the country who were in this powerful seat.

- That seems a little quaint.

- It does seem a little quaint right now.

(mellow music) (mellow music ends) - Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer.

And today, we are looking at President Trump's revolutionary, yes, I said revolutionary, attempt to consolidate power within the executive branch.

Because two things can be true at the same time: number one, every president tests the limits of presidential authority, number two, no president has tested those limits quite like Donald John Trump.

Just this week, for instance, President Trump's decision to deploy National Guard troops to quell LA protests had critics and constitutional scholars up in arms.

Nor has any president in modern history enjoyed a Congress as aligned with his agenda and acquiescent to his authority as this one.

So that leaves a particularly important constitutional check on President Trump's authority: the courts.

Joining me to discuss the health of America's judicial branch and the Trump 2.0 era, and to preview some important Supreme Court rulings to come, Yale Law School's Emily Bazelon.

Don't worry, I've also got your Puppet Regime.

- Elon, get in here!

I heard what you said.

- That your bill is an abomination?

- But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

- [Announcer] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

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- [Announcer] And by, Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

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Cox, a family of businesses.

- [Announcer] Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and... (bright music) (mellow music) - [Ian] Many people are saying that Donald Trump is a revolutionary president.

One of those many people is, of course, the Donald himself.

- 250 years after the first patriots stood and fought at Lexington and Concord, we're in the midst of another kind of revolution: a revolution of winning and a revolution of common sense, common sense.

(audience applauding) - Another one of those many people is me.

But I think President Trump is being far too modest; yes, you heard that right.

His revolution goes beyond just common sense and winning.

Trump 2.0 has the potential to transform American governance at a more fundamental level, by removing meaningful checks on executive authority.

But will the revolution succeed?

It will come down to the fate of those institutions President Trump is trying to defang.

So let's look at which institutions are holding, which have already broken, and which remain in play.

First to what's holding.

Our king-hating founders envisioned a decentralized government that gave the states significant power.

Your civics teacher called it federalism.

And as of today, we've seen relatively little federal interference in state governance.

Recent news out of Los Angeles notwithstanding.

And the military, though led by a politically aligned secretary, remains resistant to unlawful orders.

Most importantly, the judiciary remains independent.

Lower courts have struck down volley after volley of executive orders, and the Supreme Court has pushed back on White House overreach including recent rulings on tariffs and immigration.

Now to what's broken: the legislative branch.

Congress no longer functions as a check on the presidency.

Impeachment has become political theater, not a constraint.

The GOP is now a vehicle for Trump, not a party with internal dissent.

And Democrats, remember them, are in total disarray.

Gone is any form of meaningful ethical oversight of the Trump administration.

The founders envisioned Congress as the first branch among equals.

Just a few months into Trump's second term, it's become the first branch to break.

And finally, what remains in play.

Keep an eye on the power ministries, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the IRS.

They're facing internal purges and external pressure to serve political aims.

Don't expect them to open any significant investigations against the executive or its allies.

Also keep an eye on the health of US elections, still free and fair, but increasingly viewed as corrupt, which makes them a growing target for political interference.

And remember, just because an institution is currently holding strong, that doesn't mean that it will hold indefinitely, and that brings me back to the judiciary.

Setting aside one highly publicized exception, the Trump administration has continued to follow Supreme Court rulings, and I see no immediate indication of that changing.

Like I said, it's early days.

What happens once President Trump, the self-described revolutionary of winning, gets tired of losing in court?

Here to talk about the state of the judiciary in Donald Trump's America and the biggest Supreme Court rulings coming down the pike: Yale Law School's Emily Bazelon.

Emily Bazelon, welcome back to "GZERO World."

- Thanks for having me.

- I feel like the judiciary in the United States, an issue where you have a fair amount of expertise, is one of the things that seems to be standing comparatively strong right now.

Am I too optimistic about that?

- No, I think you're right.

Most of the action thus far has been in the district courts all across the country, so we're talking about hundreds of judges reviewing requests for emergency relief from Trump's executive orders.

And for the most part, I think they have been trying to apply the law fairly.

Most but not all of the decisions in these cases have gone against the government.

I would argue that's because the Trump administration is doing extraordinary things, many of which are illegal.

There have been rulings against the government from judges who Trump appointed, which he's very angry about.

But if you think about our separation of powers and the independence of the courts, it's actually a really good sign that judges are trying to apply the law regardless of who appointed them.

- Yeah, I mean, he got a 9-0 ruling in the Supreme Court, 9-0 against Trump, and you got Alito, Clarence Thomas, right, saying, "No, you actually can't just send this guy to El Salvador."

- Right, so I think when you get to the Supreme Court, which has only had a few opportunities to review the work of the lower courts, what you see is a mixed response.

And I think the Supreme Court has been the strongest against the government in these deportation cases where people got zero due process, and where lower court judges have built a record showing that.

And the justices have been backing them up; they have had the backs of the district court judges in those cases.

The other side of the coin is this decision recently in a case where Trump fired one of the folks on the National Labor Relations Board and another agency head, and the court said, "Trump does have the power to do that."

And that's giving Trump more power at a moment where arguably the courts are showing that he's abusing his power in other contexts.

It comes on top, of course, of the decision last summer by the Supreme Court giving Trump criminal immunity, which Trump invokes all the time in all kinds of legal filings, whether it's relevant or not.

- Five months in, does the Trump administration feel revolutionary in its intent to you?

- I mean, it feels unbounded and unprecedented and an extraordinary use of executive authority and power.

And a theory, at least rhetorically, including from Trump himself, which makes it unclear whether he really respects the independence of the courts.

So when you go back to the constitution and separation of powers and the idea that it is the role of the courts to say what the law is, I think at least in terms of his rhetoric and then some of the actions disobeying lower court orders that the president is really threatening that structure.

Presidents have respected court orders since the founding, so to mess around with that at all, which Trump, the administration has done in several of the deportation cases, again, that's a very big deal.

It is also true that there is whole swaths of law that the administration has been respecting court orders and indeed has not even appealed some of the biggest rulings against it, which is a tell about how strong or weak they think their position is, right?

- Or about how many there are, and you've got to reserve some capital.

- Maybe, but when you try to tell law firms that they can't do any more government business and the courts reject that under every provision of the Constitution starting with the First Amendment, you'd think that if the administration thought it was on strong ground, it would appeal, right?

I mean, those were big headlines.

Same with the actions against Harvard; they just haven't appealed a lot.

- And let's start with the law firms because that seems pretty foundational to the rule of law.

I mean, you get a vigorous defense no matter who you are in the United States and Trump has an executive order saying, "Actually no, not in the case of this law firm "because I don't like them, I don't like who they've represented."

To me, and I'm not a legal expert at all, it seemed as if that was on its face going to be rejected by any justice in the country.

What do you think motivates an executive order like that?

- Well, first of all, it's vindictive.

It sends a message.

Even if they lose in court, arguably they have chilled business for these firms because they're sending this incredibly loud and clear message, "We don't like this law firm."

If you do government business, maybe you're going to think twice before you hire the lawyers who work for that law firm.

So I think that's one reason.

And I think there's a lot of just pure vindictive revenge-taking going on with some of these orders and just pushing to see what they can get away with, how far can they go.

- And as you've said, at the beginning, there was a Trump administration view that, well, a lot of these judges, federal judges, they're activist judges, they're liberal judges... Look at what they've done in all of these other cases.

You can see that they have a bias, and many of these judges do indeed have biases, right?

We've seen that.

But when there are judges that were appointed by Trump himself, I mean like the recent trade case, three judges on this federal trade court and they all vote unanimously against the Trump administration.

And then, Trump goes after the Federalist Society for appointing or suggesting the appointment, I should say, one of the justices.

How does that play?

- Well, I think that was, again, really a big deal.

Trump was having a beef with the Federalist Society basically because he blames the Federalist Society, deeply conservative arm of the conservative legal movement, for judges not ruling his way.

In other words, his view of the judges are that they are supposed to do his bidding, right?

They are Trump judges- - At least the ones that he appointed, yes.

- Yes, and so then you see him nominate to the Court of Appeals, Emil Bove, who was Trump's personal lawyer, now top official in the Justice Department.

And Trump's announcement says that Bove is going to make America great again.

In other words, it's an explicit statement that Trump expects this judge to be a MAGA judge.

- To be a political appointee.

- That is shocking.

That is not how presidents have ever talked about the judiciary.

And the idea that you respect the independence, that you understand that there's something called law, which is different from something called politics.

And in the past, you can argue the judges have not followed the law, that they seem in some way biased like you just said, but that is different from explicitly hiring them in order that they would perform in that way.

- Now Matt Gaetz, of course, was originally nominated to lead the Department of Justice.

That was quite spectacularly rejected by some of Trump's own party members.

He had to withdraw.

Ended up with Pam Bondi.

What do you think about that appointment in terms of action so far, precedented, not precedented in the context that you've just been talking?

- You know, Bondi has been really clear that she sees the Justice Department as an arm of the president and she has been very willing to weaponize it against Trump's enemies.

She says that she sees her job, again, as doing the president's bidding.

And since Watergate, we have not had that kind of conduct from an attorney general of the United States.

There has been this idea, and it's been codified in Justice Department rules, it's not like just some vague norm out there.

There has been this real commitment from the Justice Department to have distance from the president, independence.

So you don't have people from the White House calling up and telling the attorney general who to prosecute.

In this administration, you 100% have that.

I mean, we don't even remark upon it all the time anymore because it's becoming common.

And so that is a real breach with the past deportment of attorney generals and the way the Justice Department has functioned, somewhat importantly independent from the White House.

- So let's talk about the Supreme Court briefly.

It does appear that President Trump thinks, or at least acts differently, about the rulings of the Supreme Court.

Hasn't challenged their legitimacy, hasn't said that they're a bunch of activists, hasn't gone certainly after his own appointees the way he has with the lower level courts.

Do you buy that and do you think it's likely to stand up?

- I think it's true so far, he's been making that distinction.

But I think the basic point is that I don't think one should take a lot of solace in the idea that, "Oh, Trump is promising to obey the Supreme Court," because almost every case in the country does not go all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Lower court judges are crucial to the system operating.

And I think also it's early days, and you could argue that part of what Trump is doing right now is testing the waters to see how much strain he can put on these basic pillars of the democracy and how people are going to respond.

And so if we're kind of blase about the challenge to lower court judges, does that just give him more free rein to eventually try the same kinds of moves against the Supreme Court?

- Of all the things coming down the pike soon for the Supreme Court, birthright citizenship is a big one, and so far, at least, the justices seem potentially divided on this issue.

Talk about what you expect.

- So there's two things happening in this case.

One is the merits, can Trump order an end to birthright citizenship?

On that question, the justices actually seem united, none of them wanted to defend Trump's order.

However, they are almost certainly not going to reach the merits of that question this June.

What is much more likely is they're going to rule on this procedural question about whether district courts can continue to issue what we call nationwide injunctions, these orders where one judge in one courtroom says for the whole country, "No, you can't do that," or "Yes, you can do that."

- Which does on its face seem kind of excessive, right?

- It does seem like a lot of power to give one district court judge.

- [Both] To give every district court judge.

- And it means that if you find one who's sympathetic, then you win, or at least you get to block the government from doing something temporarily, right?

So one way to think about this question is if the president orders something, do we want the default to be that that order goes into effect?

We live with it, we find out what it's like, right?

This is how democratic process works.

Or do we want judges to be able to pause everything while the underlying legal questions get resolved on the merits, which can take a couple of years often.

So that's one way to think about this.

The justices, you're right, seemed very divided.

I think that we can expect they will in some way limit this power of nationwide injunctions that courts have had, and the question will be how far they dial it back.

There's a kind of middle ground here where they could say, "Look, you still have this power, "but only national injunction if that is necessary to give the plaintiffs the complete relief they need."

And sometimes that is not necessary.

Sometimes you have a limited number of plaintiffs in one place and you can just issue an order with regards to them that does not affect everybody everywhere.

And I would also add that we got to talk about Congress here.

There are three branches of government.

The founders never anticipated judges pitted against the president and Congress just like laying down, even though what the judges are trying to do is ascertain and apply laws that Congress enacted.

I mean, all these funding freeze cases, these are appropriations bills that Congress passed for this year.

And the idea that they're just either standing by or even cheering Trump on while he basically undoes all of their work to fund things is kind of crazy, but that's what's happening.

- So the excitement in this field this week, and it's different every week, let's face it, is getting a lot of attention to Los Angeles.

We have some very significant protests, a lot of violence, frankly.

An LA police department that is trying to contain it, not completely effectively.

Trump comes over the top and says, "I'm sending 2,000 members of the National Guard."

We haven't in 60 years seen a president order National Guard in without the support, consent of a governor.

What do you think is going on here?

- First of all, I think it's important to think about whether the Trump administration provoked this unrest in LA, right?

I mean, they were doing immigration enforcement in the Garment District, in another part of the city that's largely Latino, pulling people out of their workplaces, doing exactly the kinds of things that gets other people who are connected to the folks getting taken away very upset.

And so there's a way in which there's a feeling of a kind of setup happening, underlying all of these facts.

- Then- - Let me just push back on that for one moment because I'm not disputing what you just said, but, of course, if these people are in the country illegally, and part of Trump's platform, which he won on, was we're not doing anything to respond to people illegally in the country, I mean, provoking it is exactly, not only within the rule of law, but frankly you could say it was an abdication if he hadn't.

- You could argue that.

I mean, it is 100% true that they're enforcing immigration laws, right, and that there are lots of people in the country illegally.

However, if you were just playing the numbers game, you would go to a poultry factory in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest and pick up a lot of factory workers, right?

When you choose to go into the heart of a city onto the streets and publicly snatch people up, you're kind of asking for a reaction, and you pick a very democratic city- - Or you're showing that you're actually doing something when you don't have the ability to get the numbers that otherwise you'd like to get.

- I mean, there you go.

It's just the politics play very favorably for the president, right, because immigration enforcement is an issue in which a lot of Americans, most Americans, at least top level, agree with more enforcement.

So you have all those politics as part of the mix, then you have unrest, and then you have an order.

The governor of California, the local law officials, they're not asking for help, right?

They're saying, "We can handle this."

But now, you have federal troops on the ground, heavily armored.

You have this kind of spectacle of what looks like a kind of federal, extremely strong law enforcement presence; that is itself, again, provocative.

You kind of draw more people in.

And then, you have the situation where there's violence erupting, and then that can be an excuse for even more troops to be called in.

And we know that Trump really likes to flex these muscles, and so I think that's underlying here, what we're seeing.

- Again, you can say he didn't follow the appropriate process, but the reality is that if Trump wants to use this occasion to bring in troops legally, it's within his can.

- Yes, and that is arguably a problem with the Insurrection Act and, more broadly speaking, with how the American presidency has become so powerful in our structure.

I mean, it is not the first branch of government in the Constitution, Congress is.

But over time, the executive has really arrogated to itself more and more power that lawmakers used to share in.

Congress has gotten much worse at standing up for its own institutional prerogatives.

It's become polarized along partisan lines.

The Republicans in control of Congress right now seem to care much more about Republican power than they do about institutional congressional power.

And so what you see here is one manifestation of extraordinary executive power.

And, you know, the framers, really, I think, assumed that there would be presidents operating in good faith with the best interests of the country who were in this powerful seat.

- That seems a little quaint.

- It does seem a little quaint right now, especially because, as I was trying to say before, the structure they set up had more checks and balances in it than ours really does.

And I think that, unfortunately, the Insurrection Act and the possibility of it being invoked is evidence of that.

- Which is why you wanted to bring us back to Congress because that's a major check and balance that clearly just does not function.

Impeachment does not function.

These have become political tools, not an actual check on the executive.

- Yeah, and it's really important to remember that because if one of the three legs of the stool just kind of disappears, we sort of forget about it whereas they're really important to the structure.

That makes the stool fall down.

The judges cannot save the country from an authoritarian president if we have one by themselves.

That's just not a reasonable expectation to have.

They can slow things down, they can hopefully make people think they can stop some actions, but really this is a system of checks and balances that depends on all three of the parts of it doing their job.

- Emily Bazelon, thanks for being here.

- Thanks for having me.

(gentle music) - And now, it's time for Puppet Regime where we have some rare behind-the-scenes footage of that Trump-Musk blowup.

- Elon, get in here!

I heard what you said.

- That your bill is an abomination?

- Yeah.

Say it to my face.

- Uh, your bill's an absolute abomination.

- You know what?

This is the problem with you, immigrant.

They let you in, you overstay your Visa, you have tons of kids, take a lot of jobs away, bring in a lot of drugs, frankly, everybody knows it, and then all you do is criticize, criticize, criticize.

- What the heck are you gonna do?

Deport me?

- You're a little rich for that.

♪ Puppet Regime ♪ - That's our show this week.

Come back next week.

And if you liked what you've seen, or even if you don't, but you want to remove any and all constitutional checks to your power, why don't you check us out?

Gzeromedia.com.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music ends) (bright music) - [Announcer] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Announcer] Every day, all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Announcer] And by, Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

Cox is working to create an impact in areas like sustainable agriculture, clean tech, healthcare, and more.

Cox, a family of businesses.

Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and... (upbeat music) (bright music)