A Moratorium Fiasco
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 August 2021
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You've probably heard about the craziness around the Biden administration’s new eviction moratorium. They consulted outside law professors instead of the Justice Department. Or did they? The president said he didn't have the authority to do it, and then he did it anyway. Lawfare has published two big articles on the subject in the last couple of days—one of them by Lawfare senior editor Alan Rozenshtein, and the other by Lawfare founding editor Jack Goldsmith. They both joined Benjamin Wittes to talk it all through. What exactly did the Biden administration say? What exactly did it do? Where was the Justice Department? And did any of this violate the law?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:34.1 | Just as a matter of public messaging, it is, I think, not a good thing for the president |
| 0:37.4 | to ever say the phrase, I don't think what I'm doing is legal. |
| 0:41.3 | But that's okay because by the time the courts enjoy me, I will have accomplished my objective. |
| 0:46.9 | If the president thinks that what he is doing is not legal, he should not do it. |
| 0:50.6 | If the president thinks that what he is doing is legal, he should say that what he thinks |
| 0:54.2 | he is doing is legal. |
| 0:55.6 | But he should not say I think what I'm doing is legal and I'm going to wait for the courts |
| 0:59.2 | to enjoy me because of course the president is not just a regular litigate in civil litigation. |
| 1:04.7 | The president is the head of the executive branch. |
| 1:06.8 | He has an independent obligation to take care that the laws be executed and so he presumably |
| 1:11.7 | has an obligation to act in a sincere belief that he is executing the laws as he understands |
| 1:17.3 | them. |
| 1:18.3 | I'm Benjamin Widis and this is the Law Fair Podcast August 11, 2021. |
| 1:25.7 | You've probably heard about the craziness around the Biden administration's new eviction |
| 1:32.2 | moratorium. |
| 1:34.2 | It's being called lawless. |
| 1:35.6 | They consulted outside law professors instead of the Justice Department or did they? |
... |
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