Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith on Reforming the Presidency
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 October 2021
⏱️ 50 minutes
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Summary
It's been almost a year since Trump lost the presidency and over nine months since a new administration and a new congressional majority took power. We’re moving further and further away from Trump's controversial use of presidential authorities, and it seems like we've lost momentum in the push for systemic changes to prevent future abuses. Fortunately, some people are still pushing. Natalie Orpett sat down with Bob Bauer, former White House counsel to President Obama, and Jack Goldsmith, former assistant attorney general in President Bush’s Office of Legal Counsel. Together, they are the authors of the book, “After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency,” which was published in fall 2020. They've now joined together again to start a new organization, the Presidential Reform Project, which proposes a bipartisan blueprint for reconstructing the presidency. They talked about their recommendations for reform, including a few that they've added to their list since writing their book; about what's going on in Congress and the executive branch right now; and they explained why they believe that it really is still possible to implement some of their reforms.
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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. |
| 0:32.6 | Senator Grassley has been pushing this issue for a long time. |
| 0:37.1 | He has support from other senators and republic senators on that side of the house. |
| 0:42.0 | Democrats have been supporting this. |
| 0:43.8 | This is not an issue that we need to see in terms of politics. |
| 0:47.5 | As frankly, there's a consensus on it. |
| 0:49.1 | The question is, can you break through the divisiveness that seems to be the... |
| 0:55.3 | the default these days and just recognize that you actually agree on these issues, so |
| 1:01.7 | get it done. |
| 1:02.7 | I mean, there's really remarkable consensus among a good chunk of republicans and a lot |
| 1:07.0 | of Democrats on a lot of these issues. |
| 1:10.0 | I'm Natalie Orpet and this is the LawFair podcast, October 8, 2021. |
| 1:14.6 | It's been almost a year since Trump lost the presidency in over nine months into new |
| 1:19.4 | administration and a new congressional majority to power. |
| 1:23.3 | Going further and further away from Trump's controversial use of presidential authorities |
| 1:27.8 | and it seems like we've lost momentum in the push for systemic changes to prevent future |
| 1:31.8 | abuses. |
| 1:32.8 | Fortunately, some people are still pushing. |
... |
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