Norm Ornstein and John Fortier on the Continuity of Government
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 June 2020
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Molly Reynolds spoke with Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and John Fortier of the Bipartisan Policy Center about the Continuity of Government Commission, an effort they helped to lead beginning in 2002 to ensure that our three branches of government would be able to function after a catastrophic attack that killed or incapacitated large numbers of our legislators, executive branch officials or judges. They discussed the findings of the Commission, how they relate to the challenges facing the federal government today and how the various branches of government have or have not acted to ensure smooth operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 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 | But we really have a lot more of a question if somehow we have to go to the speaker or the |
| 0:40.6 | pro-tem in the case of incapacitation. |
| 0:43.5 | Let's say both are incapacitated, both sick or the one office is vacant and somebody's |
| 0:47.7 | sick. |
| 0:48.7 | There are all sorts of problems. |
| 0:50.3 | You remember briefly hearing about them in the Reagan shooting with Al Hague and the |
| 0:55.6 | controversy whether he was in charge or not. |
| 0:58.2 | But the simple point is it doesn't make a lot of sense to think of the speaker of the |
| 1:02.5 | house coming over temporarily to take over for the president, act as president for maybe |
| 1:08.2 | a few hours or days and then lose your job, lose your position in the house and not be |
| 1:15.3 | able to go back to that as the president resumes power. |
| 1:18.0 | So I think that's one that today with the Boris Johnson being sick, with the possibility |
| 1:24.2 | of presidential illness being upon us, that we really should rethink having Congress |
| 1:29.5 | in the line of succession and particularly for this question of in the case of incapacitation. |
| 1:35.1 | Maybe we should go more to a cabinet line of succession which would have much more ease |
| 1:40.0 | of continuity. |
| 1:41.8 | I'm Molly Reynolds and this is the LawFair podcast, June 17, 2020. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Lawfare Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.