Can the President Fire Anyone? SCOTUS Hears Arguments in Trump v. Slaughter

The Libertarian

The Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin

History, News, Politics

4.7 • 994 Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Richard Epstein does a deep into the Supreme Court’s latest showdown: Trump v. Slaughter, a case that could redefine presidential removal power and the future of independent agencies like the FTC. Epstein walks through the constitutional history — from the Founding to Humphrey’s Executor to modern administrative courts — and explains how the Court’s interpretation of Article II has evolved, splintered, and in some cases contradicted itself. The conversation covers everything from the steel-seizure precedent to the Federal Reserve, the structure of the administrative state, and the unresolved tension between originalism and the practical realities of modern governance. Epstein explains why this case could be one of the most consequential constitutional questions of our time.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Libertarian. I'm Charles C.W. Cook and I'm joined, of course, by Richard Epstein, the libertarian himself.
0:22.3	Richard, welcome to your own show.
0:24.4	It's always nice to be greeted by my own host.
0:27.8	All right.
0:28.9	This week we're going to discuss Humphrey's executor, or more specifically,
0:34.9	the case of Trump v. Slaughter and the issues raised therein. This week,
0:41.4	the Supreme Court held oral arguments in that case, and the question at hand was whether or not
0:50.0	the President of the United States is, thanks to his article two powers, allowed to fire people who run agencies that Congress has created.
1:03.1	In this case, the Federal Trade Commission.
1:06.3	Trump did that.
1:07.1	He fired a member of the Federal Trade Commission who subsequently sued and said you can't do that,
1:12.4	and the Supreme Court will decide whether he is right. And more broadly, whether or not there is such a
1:20.7	thing as an independent or protected agency that is staffed by figures that the president cannot remove.
1:30.3	So, Richard, what does the Constitution say on this?
1:34.3	What happened in the early days of the Republic and how has it changed?
1:38.3	By God, this is a very large, multi-part question.
1:42.3	Well, the first thing is, more importantly than what is said is what is not said in the Constitution.
1:49.0	The original debate over this in the decision of 1789, the question arose is whether or
1:55.5	not the President of the United States could fire chief executive, high executive officials without obtaining
2:03.6	the consent of Congress. There is no text whatsoever in the Constitution which deals with the
2:08.6	removal power. There is an extremely complicated text in the Constitution that deals with the
2:14.6	appointment's powers. And what it does is it has a series of distinctions
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