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rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath.

The Secretary is our to clear a public health emergency,

which is not the same thing as a national emergency on January 31st.

And for legal purposes, what that did was that triggered a small number of public health statutes,

and a small number of sort of bureaucratic and administrative softening of rules

that would have allowed the government, among other things, to ratchet up, for example,

experimental drug approval through the FDA to reallocate at least certain funding resources.

It would have allowed the government, I think, on a plausible reading of the statute

to dramatically ramp up the production of tests for the coronavirus.

And so the Secretary's Declaration of a Public Health Emergency actually triggered a bunch of powers

that the executive branch, at least so far as we know, Ben, did not aggressively utilize, at least at first.

I'm Benjamin Wittes, and this is the LawFair podcast March 19th, 2020.

It is a bonus edition.

Last night, I got on the phone with Steve Latick, who needs no introduction for LawFair listeners,

to talk about presidential emergency powers, all things presidential emergency powers,

what can the president do?

What limits what the president can do?

...