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TRUMP REP. JAMIE RASKIN UNDERSTANDS THE ISSUES Democracy Now!: Rep. Jamie Raskin: Trump's Attacks on Critics & Press Are Part of the 'Authoritarian Playbook' PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuUw9OhD6sI Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Pulling everything apart requires muscle but not a lot of brain. For this, Trump is well qualified. But putting things together so that they work smoothly is a different skill ... and there is no evidence that Trump and his team of amateurs have any of the skill required. I am gaining in optimism. A lot of competent Americans are waking up to the danger that is Trump and the realization that he is very dangerous, but that he is also a huge bluster machine ... ' full of sound and fury, signifying nothing!' Shakespeare Henry 5th (from when I was 12 years old!) I am also hopeful that a lot of the people who are enabling Trump will soon realize that Trump is all bluster and bravado, and rather little of substance is going to come from all his posturing. It will take time ... but I don't think there are many Americans who understand that most of the world cannot stand Americans and what America projects. Since the ende of WWII, every country on the planet has had to 'play nice' with America, because to do anything else would attract negative repercussions. Those days were coming to an end anyway, but Trump is making it happen now rather over the next 5 or 10 or 20 years! Bottom line ... in the very near future, America is going to need the world more than the world is going to need America. I am firmly convinced that Trump will get 'taken down' quite soon. How this will come about is not at all clear to me at the present time ... but his sort of leadership is ... or should not be possible in a functioning democracy. Trump likely gets around this problem by disabling democracy ... and in the process sets himself up for his ultimate downfall. Peter Burgess
Rep. Jamie Raskin: Trump's Attacks on Critics & Press Are Part of the 'Authoritarian Playbook' Democracy Now! Mar 17, 2025 2.64M subscribers ... 438,651 views ... 11K likes Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-de... President Donald Trump spoke at the Department of Justice Friday in an unprecedented speech in which he threatened to take revenge on his political enemies, from the press to the FBI itself. 'It was a typical rambling and hate-filled diatribe,' says Maryland Congressmember Jamie Raskin. 'Nobody has ever taken a sledgehammer to the traditional boundary between independent criminal law enforcement, on the one side, and presidential political will and power, on the other.' Raskin, who spoke at a press conference in response to Trump's address outside of the Department of Justice, is a former constitutional law professor and served as the Democrats' lead prosecutor for Trump's second impeachment over the January 6 Capitol insurrection. He also responds to Trump's 'illegal' invocation of the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and his attempt to deport foreign-born university students and faculty. Trump's sweeping efforts to make the United States hostile to immigrants 'creates danger for everybody,' warns Raskin. Finally, Raskin responds to recent divisions within the Democratic Party over a GOP spending bill. He urges congressional Democrats to present a 'unified plan' and 'common strategy' for resisting a Republican supermajority loyal to Trump. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET. Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe Transcript 0:00 the United States is moving closer to a constitutional crisis as the Trump Administration refuses multiple court orders while the president vows to take revenge on political enemies and escalates his attack on the Press on Saturday the US deported 137 Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador after president Trump invoked the alien enemies Act of 1798 which was last used to justify the arrest and interment of 30,000 and Japanese German and Italian Nationals during World War II meanwhile Colombia student protest leader Mahmud Khalil remains locked up in an ice jail in Louisiana for taking part in student protests against Israel's war on Gaza a second Colombia student protester has also been arrested on Friday president Trump spoke at the Department of Justice and threatened to take revenge on his political enemies our predecessors turned this Department of Justice into to the 1:00 Department of Injustice but I stand before you today to declare that those days are over and they are never going to come back they're never coming back so now as the chief law enforcement officer in our country I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred in a moment we'll be joined by Democratic Congress member Jamie Rasin of Maryland but first let's turn to a part of his response to Trump's speech Raskin spoke outside the Department of Justice Friday in the 18th century the American Revolution overthrew the Kings the Lords and the feudal Barons to establish a nation where we would have a nation where all would be equal under the law as Tom Payne put it in the monarchies the king is law but in the democracies the law is King but amazingly we now have a president 2:00 in the 21st century who believes he's a king and he believes that the king is the law once again the first seven weeks of this radical experiment in Neo monarchism has been a disaster for the rule of law and for the Constitution and for the First Amendment there have been 120 Federal cases filed against Donald Trump all over the country and he is lost already in more than 40 courtrooms across the land where temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions have been issued against his Lawless attack on the Constitution that was Congress member Jamie Rasin of Maryland speaking outside the doj on Friday responding to Trump's speech he's joining us now from Tacoma Park Maryland Congress member Rasin is the top Democrat on the house Judiciary Committee and a former constitutional law Professor during Trump's first 3:02 presidency Raskin served as a floor manager and the Democrats lead prosecutor for Trump's second impeachment after the January 6 Capital Insurrection he was also a member of the House January 6 committee investigating the capital Insurrection in January Biden gave preemptive pardons to Rasin and other members of the January 6 house committee earlier today president Trump claimed the part pardons are invalid because he said they were done by autopen Congress member Jamie Rasin welcome back to democracy Now why don't we start there um with President Trump saying all the pardons that he issued that were done by autopen are invalid that would include you your response first of all thank you for having me uh Amy and that was uh the first time I got to hear a clip from our press conference what you couldn't hear there was uh the con Bering and heckling 4:01 of uh Mega counter protesters who showed up we were being drowned out by a guy with a bullhorn I wanted to borrow his bullhorn uh because we didn't have a sound system with us uh but I I appreciate you're you're running that clip where you know we went and appeared opposite Donald Trump um so but but I had not seen that Donald Trump is claiming that the pardon uh rendered by President Biden was somehow illegitimate because of the kind of pen that was used um this sounds like classic Donald Trump stuff um you know the the pardons of course were necessary because of uh Trump's promises to prosecute Benny Thompson and Liz Cheney uh less so the rest of us but they had already made their moves against Liz Cheney and I have no reason to think that uh that those are not valid anym than uh the 5:00 humiliating and atrocious pardons that that Donald Trump uh gave to um nearly 1,600 insurrectionists including um violent felons who uh viciously attacked our police officers on January 6 so if you can talk about this almost unprecedented speech it is very rare for a president to go to the Department of Justice and give a speech like this I think Clinton did around some anti-me bill which when many would dispute was actually an anti-crime Bill Obama went to say goodbye to the attorney general but to give an hour address naming names of targets talking about the press as enemies of the people if you can respond overall to what he said well it was a typical uh rambling and hate filled diet tribe uh by Donald Trump no speech like that has ever taken 6:01 a place uh at the US Department of Justice which has existed since 1870 when it was set up to try to enforce the Reconstruction amendments to the Constitution against the kuks clan and against white supremacists and insurrectionists and secessionists um but uh nobody has ever taken a sledgehammer to the traditional boundary between independent criminal law enforcement on the one side and presidential political will and Power on the other but here uh Trump made it clear that he views these people as his lawyers they are reporting to him according uh to his corrupt unitary executive Theory um and far from staying out of the business of deciding uh who will be prosecuted and who will be let go he's going to superintend uh the whole Machinery of the Department of Justice I want to go to a clip from president Trump speaking at the Department of Justice 7:01 I believe that CNN and msdnc who literally write 97.6% bad about me or political arms of the Democrat Party and in my opinion they're really corrupt and they're illegal what they do is illegal these networks and these newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative and it has to stop it has to be illegal it's influencing judges and it's in it's really uh changing law and it just cannot be legal I don't believe it's legal so that is President Trump speaking at the justice department of course he has sued ABC he has sued CBS he has sued the De Moine register um because he of the has the backing of the wealthiest person on Earth Elon Musk um he could do endless lawsuits and whether or not they win 8:00 that's not the point but he could just wipe out one news institution after another Congress member Rasin well he's obviously frustrated because he's losing everywhere in court on everything from the birthright citizenship executive order which is blatantly unconstitutional to the spending freeze to the sacking of thousands of probationary employees and so he's frustrated so he says it's got to be illegal for the media to be covering his defeats and to be trying to uh expose the various constitutional violations of his administration of course it's completely lawful and protected by the First Amendment and he's just operating out of the authoritarian Playbook uh which says that the first thing you do when you get in is you crack down on the Free Press and he's been doing that in numerous ways he's been ordering the FCC to go after ABC CBS NBC anybody who displeases him in any way but he's also been personally suing media entities there was a a Shakedown of $115 million 9:02 against ABC because he was unhappy with coverage there um and now he's got a$ 20 billion lawsuit against CBS not even because of anything they said about him but because he thought that the coverage of kis was too positive it was about right a a 60 Minutes interview which uh in all news media you do an hour an interview and you play 10 minutes so things like her sneezing were taken out and he said that was used to affect try to use to be affect the election of course you Fox News operates completely as an ideological arm of the Republican party and of uh the Trump cult uh and there's nothing unconstitutional about that uh you know it's totally fine for a newspaper entity to be endorsing Harris or Trump or what have you so he's just absolutely confused on the point uh talk about the naming of names everyone from oh Norm to the organization crew that 10:02 sues over corruption in government to the Democratic lawyer Mark ellias to the prosecutor Mark pomerance pomerance who worked for Alvin Bragg he named him as well the Manhattan da what it means for the president of the United States to name check these people and talk about going after them well Trump has embarked upon exceedingly unpopular policy moves including you know in $888 billion cut to Medicaid uh increasing theack on Social Security coming from Elon Musk a gutting of federal departments and agencies promoting uh Environmental Protection promoting health research promoting uh anti-d disease campaigns and so the only way to try to protect uh these Maneuvers is to shut down a free press and disable the lawyers who are in court every day holding them to account 11:02 and understand Amy we are winning in court every single day against the lawlessness most recently uh against this completely uh illegal move to deport people outside of the provisions of immigration law by invoking the alien enemies Act of 1798 which requires that America be at war or be in the midst of an invasion and we are not being invaded and the Congress of the United States which I have the pril of serving in has not declared war on Venezuela so let's go into that Trump invoking that 18th century law in order to deport Venezuelan Nationals from the United States on Saturday uh they flew the Trump Administration more than 260 immigrants including 130 people accused but not convicted of the uh being a member of the Venezuelan gang Trend aragua which Trump has labeled a terrorist organization the flights came despite a temporary restraining order 12:01 from US District Judge James bosberg who ordered any of these deportation flights that were currently in the air to be turned around one of them was still on the ground um The Washington Post reports the three flights bound forl Salvador arrived after the judge's order um it looks like Salvador this Maximum Security Prison um which is ultimately run by the Trump allly Salvador and president na guilty of mass human rights abuses um it looks like this judge is holding a hearing today about why they disregarded his ruling can you talk about the significance of this the same thing happened with the brown University Professor the kidney doctor um who was sent back despite the judge ruling she should be allowed to at least be her case be heard and she should not be 13:01 deported James bosberg is an excellent judge uh in the district of Colombia federal judge he's also very conservative and this is a pattern we note now that it goes across Democratic and Republican uh appointees the same with you know a bunch of prosecutors who have resigned rather than participate in a corrupt scheme like the uh the effort to absolve and exculpate uh mayor Adams um but bosberg order was completely flouted and violated uh by the Trump Administration and by the president of El Salvador who gloated and basically mocked the judicial order online saying uh oopsy too late and I think that was retweeted uh by I think it was Elon Musk who retweeted it uh with some Glee but um look you're you're messing with federal court judges um who intervene in a situ situation 14:02 like this only when they believe there is imminent harm to people being threatened and when they think that there is a probable likelihood of success on the merits of the case and I think it was shown to his satisfaction that there was all kinds of imminent harm uh being threatened by these deportations outside of the immigration law system that we've got by invoking the alien enemies act from 1798 which was last used during World War II to round up uh Japanese and Japanese American uh citizens in the internment um and uh so I don't know it'll be very interesting to see what judge bosberg does at this point uh because as the president of El Salvador the corrupt and human rights violating president of El Salvador said oopsie too late um when it was very clear that they had the order to bring those people back and let them go through the normal process we have no 15:00 idea who was uh part of the contingent being deported and Rubio the Secretary of State retweeted the oopsy now I want to ask you about Mahmud there have been Mass protests across the country um for this Palestinian graduate student who is here on a green card his white wife eight months pregnant she is a US citizen to be released can you talk about what's happened to him um he's now still in Louisiana ice detention um what you're calling for well uh we're calling for respect for the rule of law and for the First Amendment and for due process and nothing more than that I would hope uh I would assume that people who support the freedom of speech and due process would be saying this is a completely unacceptable situation first of all when he was picked up they were saying that he had a student visa which he did not he's a permanent resident a green card 16:00 holder who has all of the same First Amendment rights that a US citizen has um and so you can disagree uh with his uh Speech you can agree with his speech but in any event he was picked up for his speech not given due process under uh our immigration law system and then deported and taken out of state and that's just an intolerable situation and if it can be done to him it can be done to every other permanent resident and indeed because he's never been charged with anything there have never been criminal charges and he's not being charged with anything now um it creates danger for everybody both noncitizens and citizens alike and of course that's the history of this am if you go back to the Alien and Sedition Acts from the 1790s um Thomas Jefferson was able to observe along with other people who were the targets of the alien stion acts that the attack on immigrants very quickly becomes an attack on citizens as the incumbent party thinks that they're absolutely invulnerable and they can uh 17:02 jail people and prosecute people just for being in the political opposition so can you talk about some of the things you're calling for calling on people to submit an OP record request to Doge for your own data for people's own data to see what they have on you like Social Security student loans Etc the meaning of this and you're overall as a constitutional lawyer the role of the richest man on earth of Eli musk firing thousands of people using his own social media platform X to do this what role does he have in the US government well we don't know exactly what role he has that's an excellent question because they're very slippery and Elusive about this uh sometimes the president describes him as the head of Doge as the leader of Doge in court they've said he's not involved uh in administrative capacity with Doge he's just an advisor uh to the president so we'd like to know we did get this victory in court last 18:01 week where a federal judge determined that doge is a federal agency and they cannot slime away from that reality it is a federal agency that means that they are subject to Foya into the Privacy Act and I immediately sent in a request for all of uh the private records of mine private data of mine that Doge has and we under Foya and under the privac Privacy Act we all have that right to find out what information they've got from Social Security from the Department of Education if there's college loans uh if there's military service whatever it might be all of that belongs to the people um since the Privacy Act of 1974 so I sent it in I put it up online I think more than eight or 10 thousand people have followed and we're going to launch a campaign uh this week because more than 300 million people have that right and people need to understand that you've got a right to the data not Elon Musk and Doge and we want to know what's 19:02 happened to it has it gone to his artificial intelligence private business to to grock has it been shared with other third parties the people have a right to know that and so you know my grandfather was in politics and uh he told me when I was a little boy he said that duck hunting is a lot of fun until the ducks start shooting back and I think people are going to insist that our rights be Vindicated uh within American constitutional democracy finally uh Congress member Rasin uh your comments on what Chuck Schumer the ranking Democratic member in the US Senate did uh both supporting what was going to be called the Trump Administration threatened to call it the Schumer shutdown but actually not so much that as having said to the end he would not go along with it then switching and the riffs in the Democratic party now well I took a very strong position 20:00 uh against that continuing resolution which was packed with more uh the efforts to dismantle the American social safety net attacks on Medicaid attacks on healthc care and it also provided and this was very troubling to me retroactive validation at least implicitly of all of the assaults uh on the federal agencies and on the federal workers so there was no way I could go along with it um Schumer took an opposite position after different twists and turns in his journey but I've got to say Amy what troubled me the most uh resembled uh what troubled me the most about what happened to us when Donald Trump showed up for uh The Joint session of Congress it's that we did not have a unified plan across the house and the Senate within the Democratic party to decide what to do and I had said I would stick with any unified plan we had we could boycott it uh we could hold up signs we could stage a walk out whatever ever but we needed to have a plan we 21:00 needed to call a play and I think that's the real political sin here that House and Senate Democrats are acting like we occupy different galaxies we've got to get together and decide what our common front and what our common strategy is I'm an old you know washed up football quarterback it's like going out onto the field without any play at all so do you think Schumer should step down as the ranking Democrat of the Senate you know um they're going to go through that I I think we're going through a period of tremendous uh upsurge and ferment and change in terms of political leadership across the board and because we've been so separated the Senate and the house Democrats I really know very little about the internal dynamics that led to what took place there so I'll Reserve uh judgment on that but I I will say this is a moment where new political leadership is popping up everywhere and that's all to the good Congress member Jamie Rasin of Maryland top Democrat on the house Judiciary Committee former constitutional law professor thanks so much for joining us

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