Lawfare Archive: Steve Vladeck on Emergency Powers and Coronavirus

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4.7 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 June 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

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Summary

From March 19, 2020: What can the president do in a national emergency? What limits what the president can do? What authorizes the president to do all those things he can do in a national emergency? Is the president abusing, misusing, using appropriately, or under-using emergency powers during the coronavirus crisis? And what are the logical end points for how far this could go? For this bonus edition, Benjamin Wittes got on the phone with Steve Vladeck to work through these questions and talk about all things presidential emergency powers.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The following podcast contains advertising.
0:04.4	To access an ad-free version of the Lawfare podcast, become a material supporter of Lawfare at
0:11.5	patreon.com slash lawfare. That's patreon.com slash lawfare.
0:18.2	Also, check out Lawfare's other podcast offerings, Rational Security, Chatter,
0:25.2	Lawfare No Bull, and The Aftermath.
0:47.0	I'm Mary Ford. In The Aftermath, I'm Mary Ford, intern at Lawfare, with an episode for the Lawfare Archive for June 29, 2025.
0:53.9	In response to protests in L.A. over ICE raids, President Trump took two controversial actions.
0:54.6	He federalized the California National Guard without the governor's consent and sent active
1:00.4	duty U.S. Marines to the city.
1:03.0	The state of California sued the Trump administration, arguing that the president exceeded
1:07.8	his power under 10 USC Section 12406, which empowers the executive
1:14.1	to respond to a rebellion. Whether the president overstepped in his use of emergency powers
1:20.0	hinges, however, on a clear definition in use of the term rebellion, something that Congress has
1:26.3	not provided.
1:28.4	For today's archive episode, I selected an episode from March 19th, 2020, in which Lawfare
1:34.7	Editor-in-Chief Ben Wittes and Steve Lattuck, a professor of law at Georgetown University
1:40.2	Law Center, questioned President Trump's decision to use executive powers, but this time at the start of the pandemic.
1:48.2	Wood has sat down with Vladik to talk about presidential emergency powers, limits on these powers,
1:53.7	if the president overused or underused these powers enough at the start of the pandemic, and more.
2:07.4	Music is enough at the start of the pandemic and more. I'm Benjamin Wittes, and this is the Lawfare podcast, March 19th, 2020.
2:13.9	It is a bonus edition.
2:16.6	Last night, I got on the phone with Steve Vladick, who needs no
	...

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