We’re on the Verge of a Constitutional Crisis

Friday - March 17, 2017

RUSH: We are on the verge of a genuine constitutional crisis because of the Ninth Circuit court of Appeals opening the door for this Hawaii Obama-appointed judge to deny Trump’s travel ban the second time going, and I want to get into detail as to what this really means and what the left is really doing here.

It’s not a legal dispute. This is, as I said yesterday, is a silent coup that is taking place that I’m sure has been strategized since before Trump was inaugurated. But the profound, devastating possibilities that result from this in terms of a president losing all constitutional — do you realize with this judge’s ruling, I’ll tell you where this is going.

Let’s say that Donald Trump decides at any time in the near future that he needs to deploy troops, and so he does, and so a leftist activist goes to a court, shops and finds a judge, like the guy in Hawaii, and claims that Trump said during the campaign that he was gonna do X Y, or Z, whatever, and the deployment of troops is not really for the stated purpose, and the judge could shut it down!

This judge’s ruling has — if the guy’s not stopped, if the Supreme Court doesn’t overturn this, or if Trump doesn’t just ignore it like Andrew Jackson did, then we’re getting to the point where the president, because of the judiciary, will have totally lost constitutional authority to defend the country because of this little ruling in Hawaii that was made possible by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. And it’s all about this idiotic notion that a presidential candidate on the campaign trial making statements is the equivalent of an inaugurated president stating policy.

But even at that the judge doesn’t have the right to do what he did! He doesn’t have the congressional right, he doesn’t have the statutory right to do what he did, because basically this judge shut Trump down because, in this judge’s opinion, Trump is a bigot. And anti-Muslim means bigot, and we are not going to allow our president to represent us this way is essentially what this judge was saying.

But, look, it’s far worse than that. That’s just how I’m setting the table for you on it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s move on to this judge, Derrick Watson in Hawaii. ‘Cause what has happened here, folks, has the potential to be a genuine constitutional crisis, because what is happening is a silent coup. I don’t think this is even debatable. And what has happened, the judge in Hawaii was enabled in his ruling by virtue of the Ninth Circuit court ruling when they upheld that judge in Seattle on executive order number one on the travel ban.

And simply stated, the Ninth Circuit said it is perfectly fine if somebody wants to take the words of a candidate for president and assign genuine policy meaning to them, even though the candidate has not taken the oath of office, he is not making policy, he’s campaigning, and they said, “Trump said he hates Muslims. Trump said that he wants to ban all Muslims.” And so they’re thinking they have ruled that the words of the executive order are an effort to disguise Trump’s bigotry. And on that basis, Trump can be defied, even though the statute is clear on this.

So a lot of people are wondering, people who don’t follow these things and to whom legal maneuverings are also of a foreign language, why does this keep happening? As he attempts to freeze immigration from refugees and immigrants from predominantly Islamic countries, why does this keep happening? When the federal courts, local courts, they’re federal district courts, in this case in Hawaii and Maryland, the judges said that the record of statements by the president and his advisers mean that, in their view, the real purpose of the executive order is to discriminate against Muslims, and that violates the Constitution’s ban on favoring or disfavoring an election. Establishment clause of the First Amendment.

The only problem with this is, it is completely illegal and totally against all judicial practice to decide on the merits of a law or executive order based on what you think the author’s motivations are. And this conclusion — you know, I read a piece here by a guy named Josh Blackman at a website called Lawfare, which I find myself consulting more and more.

He said, “This conclusion will infect every establishment clause challenge ever brought against the president concerning Islam. Perhaps the president’s decision to use military force against a predominantly Muslim nation could violate the establishment clause. In other words, nothing Trump can do would ever eliminate that taint.” So his problem here is that if America’s courts are now holding that congressional action in areas of enumerated, exclusive authority, meaning the statute that allows Trump unilaterally and by proclamation to issue this ban, if America’s courts are holding that that authority is subject to noncitizens being given the rights of our constitution, then judicial review will have been extended to absolutely everything up to and including the decision to declare war.

Imagine that if Trump decides to send, let’s say to Yemen, on a military action and some leftist goes back to this Hawaii judge or any other favorable liberal judge and says, “Trump can’t do this because he’s a bigot. Trump said during the campaign he didn’t want Muslims coming into the country. He’s prejudiced, he’s biased against Muslims and this constitutes murder,” and the judge would say, “We think that’s right,” and the president therefore can’t send troops.

That’s where we are. With the leftist judiciary, there is an attempt here to essentially steal Trump’s executive powers because these people are liberals and he’s not. They think he’s a bigot. They think he’s a pig. But what it really is is a silent coup to steal, to extract, to eliminate all of Trump’s executive constitutional power. Because once that has been established that you can deny a president constitutional power on the basis that you think he’s a bigot because of something he said during the campaign before he took the oath of office, before he had constitutional authority, everybody knows that campaigns are filled with promises and statements to engender support.

Nobody has ever held that policy is made during a campaign. Yet these judges are maintaining that it was, because Trump’s policy is so abhorrent. And these people find it so offensive. Plus, the judge in Hawaii said, “This ban will hurt our tourism.” So I’m guaranteeing you, if Trump declared military action necessary, pick any of these seven nations, let’s say we want to actually send not just monitors, and not just PC, we actually want to send an invasive force to Syria, let’s say someday somebody decided, “Trump, we need to do this,” these guys could say he doesn’t have the authority ’cause he’s a bigot.

Don’t laugh, folks. That’s what this is. “We heard Trump say during the campaign that he wanted to ban Muslims. That means he hates Muslims. That means he’s a bigot. That means he’s filled with hate. That means his motivations here are not what he says they are. He just wants to kill Muslims. And so we are denying the president. We’re gonna put a temporary restraining order on the president’s declaration of military action.”

Now, this, if something isn’t done about this — and they’re waiting for this to go to the Supreme Court for it to be heard there — if this were upheld, this means that the judiciary will have literally taken over executive powers granted in the Constitution to the president. “Rush, they would never do that because that would mean the next time we elect a Democrat –” No, no, no, no. They’d never do this to a Democrat president, folks. The judges would never stop a Democrat president doing anything he wanted to do. That’s why none of this is legal. It’s couched in legalities. This is all politics. It’s biased, prejudicial politics.

Look at it this way. If the states would have been given a functional veto over executive powers enumerated in the Constitution, if any local judge, if any local, left-wing, anti-war dove judge has standing to deny a president his duties as commander-in-chief, where the hell are we? And that’s where this is going to lead. Other people think this could lead to a genuine constitutional crisis if it’s not resolved. Andrew Jackson faced this. Trump fashions himself a little after Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson just ignored them.

You know, John Marshall was a chief justice. Andrew Jackson wanted to do something, John Marshall said, “You can’t.” And Marshall said, “Okay, enforce it,” and he went ahead and did it anyway. Pointing out, you don’t have divisions, you don’t have an army, you don’t have the mechanism, you can sit there and tell people what you think all day long, but (raspberry) you, because you can’t enforce it, and you can’t take my power.

I don’t know what Trump’s gonna do. I’m sure they’re talking about it, how they want to deal with this. But it can’t stand. These judges I’m sure they’d love the power, but this is literally what a silent coup looks like.