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This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
N. Rodgers: Hey, Aughie.
J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?
N. Rodgers: I'm really good. You know why?
J. Aughenbaugh: Why?
N. Rodgers: Wait. Now, let me ask you. How are you first?
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, I'm a little disappointed that I haven't been nominated for an executive branch position by incoming President Trump.
N. Rodgers: I'm so glad you brought that up, 'cause that's why I'm good is because I haven't been nominated for it. That just shows people how we can be civil with each other while having different viewpoints. Because Aughie would like to be offered. What? AG maybe or.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, or put me in charge of.
N. Rodgers: For DNI. Would you like to be the director of National Intelligence? I don't want a job in this administration because I'm a little unclear on the long-term goals of this administration. I think that one of the long-term goals seems to be set fire to it all. I'm pyrophobic, so that doesn't work for me. I'm not feeling that.
J. Aughenbaugh: See, one of the reasons why I do want to be appointed is that I am enough of an institutionalist.
N. Rodgers: You want to protect and save the institution. Yeah, I know. I was like, if he would just appoint Aughie in charge of personnel for the government, we wouldn't have to worry about anything else, 'cause Aughie be like, I was going to fire people last week, but then I had a dental appointment and then I went by the grocery store and I forgot. I'll get on that next month.
J. Aughenbaugh: Next month. But listeners, if you haven't picked up on it, today's episode of Civil Discourse is in the news episode where we're going to look at two related, if you will, topics. One, we're going to go ahead and just do a quick scan and respond to some of incoming President Trump's announced appointments to executive branch positions and then relatedly, we're going to look at something that incoming President Trump has suggested.
N. Rodgers: That he would like to have happen.
J. Aughenbaugh: To the leadership in the United States Senate in regards to.
N. Rodgers: Those appointments.
J. Aughenbaugh: Those appointments taking office without going through the normal constitutional process of advise and consent. But first, Nia, I pose to you, of the announced nominations, which one surprised, alarmed made you chuckle out loud when you read or heard about it?
N. Rodgers: That's hard to choose. There are so many that I was like, that's a choice. I tell you that I have to be torn currently between Kennedy and Gates. I'm a little concerned about Matt Gates, one, because he's from Florida, so he's a Florida man. Which I'm like, Florida Man. Florida Man does whatever. Is like a headline in Florida newspapers that if you're not from there. It's always something crazy. Like, Florida man eats alligator on Main Street while naked, stuff like that.
J. Aughenbaugh: We're not besmirching the entirety of the state of Florida.
N. Rodgers: No.
J. Aughenbaugh: Nia is making reference to the fact that in the news.
N. Rodgers: They have a lot of characters.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, because there are a lot of people who are not born and raised in Florida, but then they migrate to Florida.
N. Rodgers: And they become characters.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Whether it's the combination of the heat, the humidity, the constant threat of hurricanes, whatever the case may be.
N. Rodgers: Read a Carl Hyacin book and you will know why Florida Man is a meme. It's a meme in Florida.
J. Aughenbaugh: It is a phenomenal.
N. Rodgers: Matt Gates is from Florida, in case you were wondering if you don't know that. He served as a congressman. He currently does not have a job because he resigned.
J. Aughenbaugh: For listeners, if you've not been following the news, Nia is making reference to the fact that incoming President Trump went ahead and announced that his pick to run the Justice Department, to be the attorney general of the United States is former House of Representative Matt Gates.
N. Rodgers: Now, you may ask yourselves, is Matt Gates a lawyer? Yes, he graduated from William and Mary. He is an attorney.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Here in Virginia, he graduated from and it's an excellent school.
J. Aughenbaugh: He did pass.
N. Rodgers: To believe that he did not get an excellent education.
J. Aughenbaugh: He did pass the bar.
N. Rodgers: He was a lawyer for about 10 minutes. No, really. He was a lawyer for like four or five years.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: For a small firm in Florida before he decided to run for the House of Representatives. He was elected easily. He was easily elected. Not his races, I don't believe were tight.
J. Aughenbaugh: He comes from a district that has been gerrymandered to benefit the Republican Party. It's a safe Republican seat. He comes from a very prominent political family in Florida.
N. Rodgers: I was going to say his father is rather prominent. Was he not?
J. Aughenbaugh: Was in the Florida State Senate. His dad then also made a whole bunch of money in the healthcare industry. This is a very wealthy, prominent family in Florida.
N. Rodgers: Matt Gates himself has a little bit of difficulty because he has been brought up on an ethics investigation from the house.
J. Aughenbaugh: The Justice Department also had a multiyear investigation in regards to former representative Gates being involved with underage girls, sex trafficking.
N. Rodgers: Paying people to go over the state line to have sex in another place. There's some interesting things there. They decided to close that case without prosecution.
J. Aughenbaugh: That is correct.
N. Rodgers: Matt Gates had no prosecution coming out of a DOJ. The House of Representatives did not close their ethics investigation and there is a report, but there is some interesting question as to whether it will be released now because he is no longer a member of the House of Representatives. He resigned pretty much instantly after he was chosen.
J. Aughenbaugh: By house rule, if the House Ethics Committee is conducting an investigation of one of its members, the investigation will continue until its conclusion unless the member of the House resigns. The problem now for Matt Gates.
N. Rodgers: Is that they had already finished the work.
J. Aughenbaugh: They had finished the work. They were on the cusp of releasing it per the committee's internal rules. Now the chair of the House Ethics Committee is getting pressured to do what, Nia?
N. Rodgers: To release that report because barring, well, we're going to get into why that may not be a complete issue later, but if he does have to go through advice and consent of the Senate, there are several senators who would like to read that report before they vote on his nomination for AG and that's reasonable. That's if they found evidence that he had, for instance, one of their concerns was that he showed naked pictures of people to fellow Congress persons on the house floor.
J. Aughenbaugh: Floor, which would violate not only house rules. I know some of you are like.
N. Rodgers: The House has rules. I find that hard to believe.
J. Aughenbaugh: But not only does the house.
N. Rodgers: But I do.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, in regards to what material may be viewed. But it would also suggest that former representative Gates has some fit issues.
N. Rodgers: That he's morally or ethically compromised and that he also has poor judgment.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: That's not stuff you show to coworkers. When's the last time somebody did that to you in your department?
J. Aughenbaugh: Never.
N. Rodgers: Never. Librarians don't show people naked people to anybody ever for any reason. We would go to that question. But there is a possibility that that report will not be released because they don't have to release it.
J. Aughenbaugh: Once the subject of the House Ethics Committees investigation is no longer a member of the house.
N. Rodgers: He dodged a bullet potentially.
J. Aughenbaugh: Who's the other one that you maybe raised your eyebrows on?
N. Rodgers: My gosh. It's been a week of eyebrow raising, really.
N. Rodgers: Robert Kennedy as HHS, Health and Human Services?
J. Aughenbaugh: That is correct, yes.
N. Rodgers: I'm a little concerned because Robert Kennedy's view on vaccines is very different from mine. He's not a fan of vaccines. However, in fairness to Robert Kennedy, he also has feelings about fluoride in water, which is backed up with science. There are been research that shows, it helps children once they arrive on the Earth to have fluoride in their water, but prenatally, it is actually damaging or could be damaging, we don't know, and there needs to be more studies. He's a mixed bag for me because some of the things that he says, I think, well, that's not without some scientific question. Whether it's reasonable or not is a whole separate issue, and I don't know enough about the science to decide that. Then there's some stuff where I'm, no, don't tell people not to get vaccines, that's just bad. Sixty years of polio vaccines show us that it's really good for kids to have polio vaccine, it prevents polio. You know what I mean? I don't know. But he also has some concerns about how food is regulated in this country. I don't think that's completely out of left field, the idea that perhaps companies make food not so healthy but pretty strongly desirable so that we then have, its leads to obesity, it leads to other things in our health systems, I don't know, he's a tough one for me.
J. Aughenbaugh: For me, I understand why Trump is doing this, in part, for a number of reasons. There's a connective, if you will, theme, among Trump's appointees that he's already announced. In almost every situation, Trump is one appointed people who are loyal to him.
N. Rodgers: I was just going to say loyalty is the Number 1 attribute that you must have, and see, that's where you fail. That's why you didn't get tapped because you're not particularly loyal to any politician, are you?
J. Aughenbaugh: No.
N. Rodgers: I'm not either, so I was never in the running. You could actually run stuff because you have a huge amount of administrative jobs.
J. Aughenbaugh: I've tried to explain this to my students. One of the lessons that Trump took away from his first term as president, is that many of the people in his first term that he picked to run various federal government agencies and departments-
N. Rodgers: Were loyal to the institutions.
J. Aughenbaugh: Or were recommended to him by Republican Party elites, and they were not as responsive to him as he liked. Again, this is a theme for Trump, Nia and I've talked about this on this podcast. Trump comes from the business world.
N. Rodgers: He says jump, and you're in the air before you say how high would you like me to go, sir?
J. Aughenbaugh: As CEO, you have that immediate control over your subordinates. That's one explanation. The other explanation is Trump made it very clear, and even though he attempted to back away from the Project 2025 report and in mission, et cetera, Trump made it very clear as he was campaigning that he wanted to go ahead and reform, destroy, tear down those federal bureaucracies that in his estimation, were no longer responsive to the people. He has picked a whole bunch of people across the board.
N. Rodgers: It's interesting in doing that.
J. Aughenbaugh: For instance, let me finish. Just to give you an example. You mentioned Robert Kennedy Junior just a few moments ago, it's not only that Robert Kennedy Junior is anti-vacs. He's made it very clear that some of the agencies that he would be in charge of, the CDC, and a couple of others, he thinks they need to change. Look at who Trump picked to run the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth.
N. Rodgers: Wasn't he a Fox News analyst?
J. Aughenbaugh: He was a Fox News host, former member.
N. Rodgers: But he is a veteran.
J. Aughenbaugh: He is a veteran. But Hegseth has made it very clear and said so earlier this year that the Department of Defense's effectiveness has been harmed because DOD has been forced to accommodate diversity, equity, and inclusion, if you will, principles.
N. Rodgers: Women in combat, which he does not care for.
J. Aughenbaugh: He does not care for. He also said the Biden administration inserted politics into DOD by requiring the Department of Defense to pay for women military personnel to be able to travel outside or across state lines to get abortions if they so desired. He wants to go back to the military-
N. Rodgers: Of the '50s, or maybe the '20s.
J. Aughenbaugh: No. But at least 25 years. He's made it very clear that a lot of the changes in the last 20-25 years, in his estimation, have been bad for the country's military preparedness. Matt Gates has been very clear that the justice department run by the Biden administration basically was weaponized to go after former President Trump. Tulsi Gabbard, I'm just going down the list, almost all of these people, Kristi Noem to run the Department of Homeland Security.
N. Rodgers: I'm sorry, I know you have a list, and you don't mean to interrupt, but that one just amuse me. The ones that you were asking me about amusing, I'm like that actually amuses me, I have to say.
J. Aughenbaugh: On one hand, if you look at her government service, she is the current governor of South Dakota. You may be wondering, legitimately, what does the governor of South Dakota know about Homeland Security? But as governor of South Dakota, she has said a number of times that if she was in the shoes of Texas governor, Greg Abbott, she would do the exact same thing he did, which is round up citizens without legal status, put them in buses and planes, and ship them off to states that are proudly sanctuary states for citizens without legal status.
N. Rodgers: Part of Operation Leinster.
J. Aughenbaugh: Again, her view of the Department of Homeland Security is, under my leadership, we would do that thing, and that if South Dakota was in that position, she would have done the exact same thing. Again, this is all part of a pattern.
N. Rodgers: Well, and it goes towards their view of bloat and their view of excess and their view of nanny state, this idea of the government being this overwhelming thing in your life, and they don't think that it should be an overwhelming thing in your life.
J. Aughenbaugh: Trump believes he has a mandate. Now, let's face it, every president that gets elected in this country, since I've been alive, the day after the election where they've been crowned victorious says, I have a mandate to rule.
N. Rodgers: In your lifetime, there's been exactly one that had a real mandate, that of Ronald Reagan after he walked Walter Mondale's dog. He really did have a mandate. He won 49 out of 50 states. That's a clear mandate.
J. Aughenbaugh: But the rest of them, the elections have been close. The electoral college only heightens your margin of victory, and it's designed that way, but most don't have this universal overwhelming mandate to rule, but Trump's argument is the people who voted for me knew because I said it and I've been saying it since 2016, that I want to go ahead and fundamentally change the federal government's bureaucracy, and he is now picking people who are either openly antagonistic towards the agencies that they've been nominated to run or have gone ahead and said, I don't necessarily know what this agency does, but it doesn't contribute to making America great again. That's the connective theme here. Again, some of these choices, I got to admit, I started laughing.
N. Rodgers: Like Kristi Noem.
J. Aughenbaugh: Kristi Noem was the most obvious. Matt Gates, who has been investigated for lawbreaking, is now the chief law enforcement of would be the chief law enforcement of- I'm like, there's an irony.
N. Rodgers: That's a fox chicken house.
J. Aughenbaugh: There's an irony here that would be the subject of a really good fiction book.
N. Rodgers: There's are some things that you think, if I submitted that to an editing house, they would say, no, that's so unbelievable, you can't put that in your book.
J. Aughenbaugh: If I pitch this to a bunch of Hollywood executives, they'd be like, this is so farcical. We can't even get the Coen Brothers to write and direct this movie, because even the Coen Brothers who love surrealistic plot lines would be, we can't make this appealing.
N. Rodgers: Can I say, though?
N. Rodgers: I understand where Donald Trump is coming from in terms of the people who elected him did in fact want change.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, they do.
N. Rodgers: That is not an unusual position for people to be taking the world over right now. Elections everywhere are booting out incumbents.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Because people want things to be different. I don't know that people are necessarily thinking that things will get better, they just want different. They want something that's not the status quo that they've been under for a while. That happens in cycles in the world. We shouldn't be surprised that it happened in a cycle that the United States is part of that cycle. But I have to say the choice of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. I thought was actually not a bad choice.
J. Aughenbaugh: I agree with you.
N. Rodgers: He's been on the foreign affairs committee for what? A billion years or whatever since he got to the Senate.
J. Aughenbaugh: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
N. Rodgers: Foreign relations. Thank you. He could sit down with a map of the world and actually point out the countries. There are some things that Donald Trump has chosen where I'm like, that's not a choice that I can't live with. There's some interesting Tulsi Gabbard as DNI when she's all like, Syria is not really hurting people. Somebody should tell that to all the Syrian refugees who are in Hungary right now. You know what I mean? They chose Hungary. They thought it would be better than Syria. That tells you something.
J. Aughenbaugh: DNI is the Director of National Intelligence.
N. Rodgers: Sorry. No, thank you. Acronym land and the government.
J. Aughenbaugh: We love our acronyms.
N. Rodgers: We do. I'm a little concerned about who's going to end up being picked for Department of Education.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
N. Rodgers: I'm a little worried about that one not because I think Donald Trump has suggested he wants loans to go to Treasury. Fine, whatever. I don't know that that's a good idea, but I don't know that it's a horrible idea. We'll see how it works. He has said that he wants to limit funding to institutions that teach a whole bunch of different things and it's all things that Trump feels are social ills, critical race theory, DEI stuff, and transgender rights. Things like that. I find that concerning. I find that potential for the Department of Education to be concerning, to harm kids. Adults are on their own. If you're an adult and the government harms you, I'm sad about that, but it's different than when it's kids.
J. Aughenbaugh: Because they can't really defend or protect themselves.
N. Rodgers: Right. I'm a little worried about who's going to be Department of Education. I'm not at all worried about who's going to be Department of Energy because whoever that is, it's not like that's going to change. The energy organizations have always more or less run that department. It's not like Shell oil is going to go, never mind. Now that you're in charge, we'll let you tell us what to do. That is so laughable as to be. Really what that person, whoever gets that job should be a person who just plans not to do anything.
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, I mean and also, even with the changes that the Biden administration made in regards to the United States energy policy, the cynical public administration scholar in May said all Biden did was just increase the number of firms.
N. Rodgers: Who can benefit from government contracts.
J. Aughenbaugh: Government policies.
N. Rodgers: Exactly. We've moved from Big Oil to Big Solar.
J. Aughenbaugh: Now Big Oil has to go ahead and allow a few more miles at the table.
N. Rodgers: See, this is me and Aughie being cynical, guys. Sorry about that.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, okay, but nevertheless.
N. Rodgers: But that's how we feel. We're both like, energy's probably not going to be. I really will be sad because I doubt he's going to find a Native American to serve as interior. That makes me sad because she's done a really good job. She's done good work.
J. Aughenbaugh: You're talking about Deb Haglund, right?
N. Rodgers: Right. Native American. Very much in touch with the land and the people. I think she has done a good job. I do think it's interesting the ones we haven't seen yet. Trump clearly does not care about agriculture. But if he's listening to this podcast, which I think is unlikely, I would like for him to pick Chuck Grassley. Wait, are you saying I missed one? Did I miss it?
J. Aughenbaugh: Wait a minute. He went ahead and picked the North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.
N. Rodgers: I think he's interior, isn't he?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
N. Rodgers: We got to protect Mount Rushmore. Wait. That may be in South Dakota. Anyway. Sorry. Got to protect Fargo. But I don't know that Secretary of Agriculture has been chosen yet.
J. Aughenbaugh: No, agriculture hasn't been chosen. Treasury hasn't been chosen.
N. Rodgers: Can we say to students because this isn't in the news? If they're listening to this, we want to reassure you, Elon Musk is not going to be in charge of a government agency.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, because the Department of Government Efficiency of Listeners does not exist.
N. Rodgers: It's made up. It's not a cabinet-level position. It's not a department. Donald Trump can call it a cabinet-level position all he wants, but it's not. He has been very careful to say that Elon Musk will be an advisor to him. Partly because if Elon Musk were a government employee, he would have to disclose all of his earnings.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Which Elon Musk would rather die than do. That's one thing, but also the nice thing for Donald Trump is that he can say, that's really good advice, and then he can completely ignore it.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, and listeners, the Department of Government Efficiency does not exist. It would require both Houses of Congress to create that department. Moreover, if Donald Trump was really interested in achieving greater government efficiency and effectiveness, he would go ahead and appoint one of his loyalists to run the Office of Management and Budget, which already does exist and reports directly to him. Because it's part of the executive office of the President.
N. Rodgers: That will be Steve Bannon. I laughed, but I shouldn't.
J. Aughenbaugh: Some of the pics do alarm me, simply because, for instance, Stephen Miller, who is the deputy chief of staff for policy, that guy scares me. If you're a Trump supporter, I apologize, but Stephen Miller does scare me.
N. Rodgers: He's a little scary-looking, I'll say.
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, and I pointed that out to my students, many of whom had never seen a photo of him, and when they saw him, they were like, dude. Again, I know that I am not the most handsome person in the entire world, but most people when they take a look in my photo, don't say immediately, he's scary.
N. Rodgers: Or that guy might be a serial killer.
J. Aughenbaugh: Killer, right?
J. Aughenbaugh: We don't have to worry about being brought up on charges of defamation in a lawsuit because he's a public figure. According to the Supreme Court's ruling in New York Times versus Sullivan, we can go ahead and say that kind of thing, because we are not a media organization.
N. Rodgers: We're just being not nice, we shouldn't be not nice. How he looks is not what's scary about him, it's how he thinks. He's very much a tear it all down, burn it all up.
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm too much of an institutionalist.
N. Rodgers: We don't like him for that reason, we don't like him for the same reason we don't like some of the other folks is that they want to tear down the institutions, and we are not interested in that. Neither Aggie nor I mind realigning the institutions, we don't mind getting rid of some bloat because we will both recognize and happily admit to people that there is bloat in every department, we're not talking about that.
J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, go back to our series about cabinet level departments.
N. Rodgers: Craziness that comes from them.
J. Aughenbaugh: We even identified the crazy reasons in which some of them were created.
N. Rodgers: We identified a lot of places where they've spent money badly, they failed, we're not pretending they're perfect.
J. Aughenbaugh: We're going to do an upcoming episode, a little bit of foreshadowing, we're going to do an upcoming episode about government spending. We're going to take a look at this, and we're not saying that. What we are saying is, if you appoint people who one, don't like the agency. Two, don't like the people who work within the agency. That means that for a period of time, whether it'd be two years, four years, and Nia and I keep on making reference to two years, in two years, we have midterm elections.
N. Rodgers: Likely to swing.
J. Aughenbaugh: The American public can go ahead and once again change its mind because that's what happens with midterm elections. We get a little taste of something, and we're like, you know what?
N. Rodgers: You don't want that guy.
J. Aughenbaugh: We want a different item on the menu. Thank you, but what we're saying here is, then the core functions of those bureaucratic agencies can't be achieved.
N. Rodgers: What's going to happen to poor Mattie Gates is that if he is attorney general, this is assuming he is okay. He is advised and consented by the Senate, approximately 95% of the people who work in the Department of Justice will quit. It probably isn't that high, it's probably not that high, but it's a not insignificant number of people. Any scores he might be interested in settling, he will not have the personnel to settle.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Also, can we talk about a couple of things just broadly about a lot of his nominees?
J. Aughenbaugh: Go ahead.
N. Rodgers: A lot of his nominees have been accused of sexual harassment/ assault or abuse, a lot of his nominees have been accused of fiscal.
J. Aughenbaugh: Your responsibility.
N. Rodgers: Thank you. That's an excellent way to put it. Thank you, I was looking for a word, thank you for filling me in. Things that Donald Trump himself has been accused or found guilty of, and those things used to keep you out of government, Donald Trump has shifted.
J. Aughenbaugh: Those norms have changed in large part because of Donald Trump.
N. Rodgers: To the point where I'm really surprised he didn't appoint Rudy Giuliani as AG. You know what I mean? Except right now he doesn't have a lawyer's license.
J. Aughenbaugh: You don't need one to be the attorney general.
N. Rodgers: Yeah, but it probably helps. But, a lot of these people, I know that Hages he's got tattoos that have to do with Nazi. There's a lot of interesting people who are coming in who have some real things that normally would have kept them out of these positions. Donald Trump just does not care because his main test is loyalty, and his other test is, do you have ideas about cleaning house, emptying the swamp, whatever you want to call the phrase that they all use, whenever emptying the swamp is the phrase they all use when they say they're going to get there, draining the swamp.
J. Aughenbaugh: Draining the swamp. Into your point, let's just focus on the Justice Department for a moment, Nia. In addition to Mattie Gates, Trump announced yesterday that his two primary defense attorneys in his various cases that are ongoing, at least right now, his two primary defense attorneys are going to have positions two and three in the Justice Department. Then he's picked for solicitor general, the lawyer who argued in front of the Supreme Court in his immunity case in front of the court. Now, that guy at least has, and he also has, if you will, experience because he clerked for Justice Scalia, and he's argued a number of cases in front of the Supreme Court. We'll have a guy as solicitor general who has experience arguing in front of the Supreme Court.
N. Rodgers: Which is what you want.
J. Aughenbaugh: But what's really noteworthy, again, is these people are, as you pointed out, loyal to Trump, and who are willing to go ahead and make legal arguments that challenge the norms within the legal community. Again, these are all, very characteristic, but then before we conclude this in the news episode, we have to go ahead and address something that's related to all these nominations.
N. Rodgers: Wait, can we talk about one more nominee before we do that?
J. Aughenbaugh: Sure.
N. Rodgers: Tom Homan, who is the border Zar?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Can we just put a little bit of people's fears to rest if we could? One of the things that Tom Homan just said was, we're going to get rid of criminals first.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: People who have actually committed felonious, bad actors in the United States, people who have come across the border as smugglers, as drug dealers, as gang violence.
J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, so what Nia is referencing here is during the campaign, President Trump said, what Nia, what was he going to do?
N. Rodgers: On day one, he was going to get rid of 11 million people illegally in the United States, undocumented individuals.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: He promised it a lot, he said it multiple times.
J. Aughenbaugh: The person who would be responsible for deporting these 11 million people is Homan, who he just picked to be his border Zar. You might be thinking, I don't recall that position being in the Constitution, Donald Trump, most recent modern presidents have created Zar positions, and they don't have to be confirmed by the Senate, but they basically have the authority to go ahead and guide or guide multiple departments efforts towards a common goal. After the 911 attacks, Bush 43 appointed Tom Ridge to be the Director of Homeland Security. Now, did that position exist at the time, no, because Congress had not yet created the Department of Homeland Security. President Obama had healthcare reform Zar, does that position exist in the Constitution or in law, no.
N. Rodgers: Not even close.
J. Aughenbaugh: President Biden made Vice President Kamala Harris Immigration Czar. Again, doesn't exist as a position, but to your point, Homan went ahead and said, "We're not going to be able to deport 11 million people Day 1. We're going to first focus on those here in the country without legal status, who have either committed crimes here in the United States, or they committed crimes in their home country."
N. Rodgers: Not just crimes, but big hairy ugly crimes; violent or that crime.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Now, the reason he's saying that, Aughie and I say cynically is because to get rid of 11 million people, you would need a force of enormous size. ICE just simply is not big enough to do what he's talking about. That's even with him saying no more desk jobs at ICE. Everybody's going to be out rounding people up. It doesn't matter. They don't have enough people. This whole 2025 plan of we're going to gut the government and get rid of all the employees, I'm like well, no, you're not. If you're trying to deport 11 million people, you are going to have a WPA style hiding spree.
J. Aughenbaugh: Even home insane, there's not going to be any desk jobs in ICE, immigration and customs enforcement. Doesn't make sense.
N. Rodgers: How will you process those people?
J. Aughenbaugh: Because when you round them up, you're going to have to create reports. Reports that are created where? At desk by people that have to be submitted to courts that can be reviewed by judges who sign off on deporting these people.
N. Rodgers: If you are deporting people without judgment, if you're deporting you're just going to pick people up and drop them somewhere. Which I mean, could you do that? Sure. But at that point what you're deciding is that the United States is no longer a republic and the United States is no longer a democracy.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's correct.
N. Rodgers: I don't know that Tom Homan wants to go that far.
J. Aughenbaugh: Far, yes.
N. Rodgers: I don't know that Donald Trump wants to go that far. I don't know if he does or not, because I cannot get into the mind of Donald Trump. That is a dark and frightening place, and I don't want to go there.
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm not entirely sure God knows what's going on in Donald Trump's mind, but that's quite all right. That's for a different podcast episode.
N. Rodgers: Part of what we're suggesting to folks who are really upset right now, one, we understand that you're really upset and we understand why. Some of this is actually scary. Aughie is scared of Steve Miller, and I'm a little scared of Robert Kennedy. We're scared of some people and their extremism. We're scared of a little bit of Donald Trump's tendency toward extremism. Because his tendency is 0-1,000. He doesn't have a cruising speed. He's either at a dead stop or he's on fire.
J. Aughenbaugh: He doesn't slowly apply the accelerator.
N. Rodgers: If he were actually driving a car which thank goodness he doesn't do anymore, he would just be stomping on the accelerator as fast as he could go off the light.
J. Aughenbaugh: Jamming on the brakes.
N. Rodgers: You wouldn't want to be a passenger in that car.
J. Aughenbaugh: Moreover, I would hate to be the mechanic for his vehicle.
N. Rodgers: That's true. But the reality is that a lot of what he wants to do will take time. Even if he wants to get started Day 1, and that's where Aughie going to talk to us about getting started day one. He has a plan, doesn't he for having all these people in place on January 21st?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Last week, listeners, Donald Trump reached out to the leadership in the Senate for the Republican Party and asked them to consider an idea where incoming President Trump would use a power that presidents do have in the Constitution. It's called the Recess Appointment Power. Basically, it works like this listeners. Let's say the Senate is in recess. Let's say they decided to take three weeks off for the holiday, which is basically what they do every year for a bunch of holidays. Well, the federal government doesn't stop working because Congress decides to go back home and see their constituents, their family members meet with fundraisers, etc. No, the government has to operate. What happens if there is a vacancy in the executive branch that needs to be filled while Congress is in recess? Well, the president per Article 2 of the Constitution, has the power to appoint people during those recesses.
N. Rodgers: How long do their appointments last?
J. Aughenbaugh: They last until the end of that congressional session.
N. Rodgers: Correct.
J. Aughenbaugh: Congressional sessions last two years.
N. Rodgers: Side note. Congress comes back on January 3th of 2025.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: That's the beginning of the new Congress.
J. Aughenbaugh: That is correct.
N. Rodgers: Keep that date in mind.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. What Trump wants is the Senate to start their new session on January 3th, including welcoming the new members to the Senate.
N. Rodgers: Because there's several new Senators now.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Hey, everybody. Thanks for showing up.
J. Aughenbaugh: He wants them to go into recess, so he can recess appoint all of these people that we just mentioned, because he wants them to start running their agencies immediately.
N. Rodgers: Day 1, which for him is January 21st.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: January 21th is inauguration this year?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: I'm making sure. But if you notice, there's three weeks between those dates.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Part of the reason why Trump has made this request is that one of the things that really bothered him in his first term is that some of his nominations to run various cabinet level departments and agencies did not get confirmed by the Senate until March and April.
N. Rodgers: Which is just too long to wait for someone like Donald Trump.
J. Aughenbaugh: That was too slow of a process. Now, listeners, the likelihood that even all of the Republican senators have drank the Kool-Aid or at least sipped the Kool Aid of being Trump, everything Trump. Even if they were so inclined to do that, the reality is they don't like having the president tell them how to run the Senate. The Senate prides itself on the fact that -
N. Rodgers: It's independent from the executive.
J. Aughenbaugh: It's independent from the executive.
N. Rodgers: It's supposed to be.
J. Aughenbaugh: It has its own rules. Even if those rules don't make sense to a President, the country, the world, it doesn't matter. The Senate is the most deliberative body in the world, and they proudly say this.
N. Rodgers: One of the reasons they serve six years is that they're not beholden to a President.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: That was the whole point of the way they've been set up. The likelihood that they're going to say, hey, thanks for coming all the way to DC going to need you to go home for three weeks.
J. Aughenbaugh: Weeks, is not likely going to happen, and moreover, it's even less likely to happen because of some of the people who we just mentioned.
N. Rodgers: Because there are a few Senators who are finishing out their terms. Mitt Romney, I'm looking at you, who has nothing to lose.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: By saying, I'd rather chew through a limb than be on recess.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Because if he Murkowski and Collins just said we're not going anywhere, that would be the end of that. They would lose the majority of what they have to do.
J. Aughenbaugh: They would lose the vote because there's not a Democrat in the Senate that's going to go along with this. The Democrats are going to be heck no.
N. Rodgers: One block saying heck no.
J. Aughenbaugh: Even if it set a precedent that they might want to use in the future, they recognize that they're not always going to have a President of their party in control. Even they recognize this would just be bad, and it would be bad for them politically immediately.
N. Rodgers: Let's say worst case scenario, they buckle and they go home for three weeks, and Donald Trump gets to recess appoint every single person in his cabinet, their appointments would end in 2027, two years, right?
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Because it's only the Congress in which the appointments have been made?
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Which is why he can't do it. Well, he can't do it before he's president anyway.
J. Aughenbaugh: He cannot. They don't take office.
N. Rodgers: Wait, he needs to send people home January 21st.
J. Aughenbaugh: No, he just needs them to go on recess through January 21st. The Senate could show up on the 3rd, hang around, do new members, do orientation for four or five days, maybe a week, but he needs them to be on recess -
N. Rodgers: On the 21st.
J. Aughenbaugh: On the 21st.
N. Rodgers: Got you. Then they could come back the 22nd and say, did anything happen? It would be terrible, miscarriage of justice, but it would also be hilarious. But worst case scenario, we have a two year and mid terms.
J. Aughenbaugh: You got to stop right there. Because if they came back on the 22nd and said, did anything important happened? That reminds me of my students who missed class, and then they show up and say, "Hey, did I miss anything important?"
N. Rodgers: Pretty sure you don't know how offensive that is.
J. Aughenbaugh: They get this look of being offended from their professors and they're just like, what? I'm just like that most of us put some time and energy into our class session. Yes.
N. Rodgers: Almost everything that I mentioned in class is actually important and something you should know.
J. Aughenbaugh: Anyways, so but to Nia's point listeners, the recess appointment would last for the length of that congressional session within two years.
N. Rodgers: Can we point out to listeners that it is not in the best interests of these candidates to have recess appointments?
J. Aughenbaugh: Because if any of them have political aspirations.
N. Rodgers: Afterwards.
J. Aughenbaugh: After they serve.
N. Rodgers: Which many of them do.
J. Aughenbaugh: They're going to have to go ahead and run on the fact that apparently their president who picked them, did not feel confident enough that they could actually get through the normal Senate vetting process.
N. Rodgers: In a Senate, that is the majority the president's party, and he wants to avoid it. What he wants to avoid is them being questioned publicly.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: That ad makes itself for their opponents.
J. Aughenbaugh: Oh my God.
N. Rodgers: I could make that ad, and I can't film anything. I'd be using my iPhone, and it would come out okay because I would say, what was Matt Gates afraid of? Why didn't he want to be vetted by the Senate? That question asks itself. I'm not entirely certain that a lot of those appointees want that. I think that Donald Trump loves to say the most extreme thing that he can think of. Because then when he does something less extreme than that, it feels like a relief. You know what I mean? If he said, I'm going to round up all college professors and send them to Canada and then he doesn't send a bunch of you. The ones that don't go are like, sweet, we didn't all go to Canada. It's a weird parenting style of, I'm going to go extreme so that when I'm not actually extreme, you're relieved. I don't know, it's very odd.
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, I mean, well, it's about expectations. If you go ahead and ask for the most extreme, not likely to happen thing, and then you it's part of negotiation.
N. Rodgers: You ask for 10 billion knowing that you're probably going to end up with four.
J. Aughenbaugh: Four.
N. Rodgers: After all the negotiation is done. If you walk in there saying four, you're going to end up with one.
J. Aughenbaugh: This is classic, business person negotiating.
N. Rodgers: I'm just going to get 10 to go in recess. I'll do whatever I want.
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm only offering one million dollars for your property. The other person said, well, you're going to have to pay me eight. But if you're willing to go up to $2.5-3 million and they accept that, you're still ahead. Because you didn't give them eight. He says, I want recess appointments for all these people. But what if then it provides motivation for the Senate too quickly vet them and confirm them. As far as Trump is concerned, that's a heck of a lot better than what I experienced my first term in office when some of my appointees didn't get hearings until March or April. Some of them didn't even get confirmed until the summer. Well, if I have them all in place by end of February, beginning of March. [inaudible]. Again, we can disparage Trump on so many levels and for so many reasons. But sometimes I am convinced he says and does things just so that when he moderates, we're like, wow. We avoided that catastrophe and Trump sent back saying, I got what I wanted anyways.
N. Rodgers: Maybe he really is a great negotiator with the art of the deal.
J. Aughenbaugh: All I know is listeners, there are so many reasons why recess appointing all these people is not going to happen. Again, I understand why many Americans and I've had my moments too over the last week and a half as we are recording today or I'm fearful for the future.
N. Rodgers: A little bit of despair.
J. Aughenbaugh: I get all that. But on some of these things, we need to just go ahead and not take the bait, not go ahead and have our blood pressures rise.
N. Rodgers: Trust the system.
J. Aughenbaugh: Trust the system.
N. Rodgers: Trust the system, but in order to get rid of 11 million people in one day.
J. Aughenbaugh: Day, I ain't going to happen.
N. Rodgers: Just physically is not possible don't have enough planes.
J. Aughenbaugh: We don't have enough planes. We don't have enough people. We don't have enough judges.
N. Rodgers: No. Does that mean that people should relax and not worry about this?
J. Aughenbaugh: No.
N. Rodgers: No. Of course they should worry about this.
J. Aughenbaugh: No. Democracy requires, if you will, vigilance.
N. Rodgers: Exactly.
J. Aughenbaugh: It requires hard work. Just because you got a victory in court or in a particular law, it doesn't mean that you stop defending or protecting that court victory or that law.
N. Rodgers: Just because you lose an election doesn't mean that you can't come back next time and try again.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: That's what both sides do. Both sides lose elections all the time.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Can we end on a happy note that has nothing to do with Donald Trump?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Or the federal level. We have a race that's being run here in Radford for school board. The separation in votes is four.
J. Aughenbaugh: I saw that.
N. Rodgers: Four votes separate the winner from the loser. Do you know what the loser just said? He just said, I met her on the campaign trail, and I think she'd do a good job. I'm not sure whether I'm going to ask for a recount.
J. Aughenbaugh: Recount. I like that. I saw that.
N. Rodgers: I thought, I don't know who you are, but I want to find you and give you a big hug.
J. Aughenbaugh: Big hug. Yes.
N. Rodgers: Say, that is how we should be doing politics. One, every vote counted and every vote mattered because it literally is four votes apart.
J. Aughenbaugh: Part. Yes.
N. Rodgers: But also, I've met this person, and I think they're reasonable and a decent person. I think that they will do a good job. That's instead of hair triggering. No, it's only four votes, and I'm going to ask for a recount, and I'm going to be he's like, I'm not sure I want to put Radford through that. That was his reasoning. I'm like, whoever you are, guy, you are awesome.
J. Aughenbaugh: My reaction was very similar to yours Nia when I read that. I was like, I want to go out and buy this guy a drink. Buy him a cup of coffee. Sit down with him, have a meal.
N. Rodgers: Just thank him for being a decent human and doing the right thing. Having the right attitude.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: The other person on the other side is not evil for voting the way they did.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: Somebody's got to win and somebody's got to lose.
J. Aughenbaugh: I saw that and I was just like, that's some good stuff there.
N. Rodgers: Made me feel good. Made me feel hopeful. Thanks for sticking with me Aughie for this in the news. I suspect that we're going to be doing several more of these before it settles down a little bit. Folks, we've been trying to get to an episode. We want to talk about the various territories of the United States. We've been trying to get to this episode for weeks, and it's just not working out in our favor because everything about the election has been interesting. I doubt that Donald Trump tomorrow will just take up the boring mantle and stop being interesting. That just does not seem like a thing he will do.
J. Aughenbaugh: No. But listeners, a little bit of foreshadowing over the next few weeks, again, current events willing, we will start a series that explores the various US territories.
N. Rodgers: In case you're considering moving. There are places you can go that are distant and out of the reach of many of the federal officials.
J. Aughenbaugh: There you go.
N. Rodgers: Thanks Aughie.
J. Aughenbaugh: Bye Nia.