The Rule of Law on Trial (with CNN's Jake Tapper)
The Oath and The Office
Corey Brettschneider
4.9 • 591 Ratings
🗓️ 9 October 2025
⏱️ 70 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Corey Brettschneider and John Fugelsang unpack the week’s biggest threats: ICE’s rogue Chicago raid, Trump’s plan to deploy the National Guard for political ends, and the myth of the “deep state”.
Then, CNN’s Jake Tapper joins to discuss his new book Race Against Terror—and how an Obama-era case to try an accused terrorist in U.S. court - showed the rule of law at its best.
Can that precedent survive today’s assaults on truth and justice?
Smart, urgent, and deeply relevant—this episode of The Oath and The Office is a masterclass in how democracy defends itself.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome once again to the Oath and the Office podcast. |
| 0:14.0 | I am John Fuglesang, your humble manager here to bring on the star of the show, the great constitutional law professor from Brown University, author of The Oath and the Office, as well as the presidents and the people. You've read him in time. You've marveled at his words in the New York Times. People of Earth. Make some noise for Professor Corey Brett Schneider. Hello, Professor. Hi, John. What a pleasure to be with you. We have an amazing show today. |
| 0:38.9 | We'll be joined on the second half by our guest, Jake Tapper, of course, of CNN, anchor on CNN, |
| 0:45.5 | host of the lead with Jake Tapper. And it's going to be, especially for this podcast, of course, |
| 0:51.1 | we're focused on the question of a president's obligation to the oath, |
| 0:54.6 | to the law, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. And so we're going to talk to him |
| 0:59.0 | about an amazing case during the Obama administration when there was a real debate about |
| 1:03.4 | whether or not terrorists could be tried at all in the United States and talk in particular |
| 1:08.4 | about how the legacy of that decision to try alleged terrorists and then |
| 1:13.0 | convicted terrorists plays into the current, well, lawlessness that we're seeing now. |
| 1:17.5 | And of course, we'll talk about posse comitatus and the restrictions on the use of the military, |
| 1:21.9 | the horrible ice rage. |
| 1:22.3 | All sexy stuff. Sexy stuff, professor. I'm here for it. Definitely. |
| 1:27.0 | But I know you wanted to talk about a story that's been engaging us both, a horrific story. |
| 1:31.9 | Well, before I get to that, before I get to that, because I know that unscripted banter is very important for ships like this. |
| 1:38.2 | We read that in the podcast manual? |
| 1:40.2 | Yeah, well, I mean, Corey and I are getting a lot of podcast coaching. So this is the unscripted banter part of the podcast. |
| 1:46.3 | And I just want to congratulate you, Professor, on the insane ranking for this humble show on the Apple podcast under government. |
| 1:55.1 | I mean, well done, Corey. |
| 1:56.8 | Well, thanks, John. |
| 1:58.6 | And I'll throw it back to you. |
| 1:59.7 | It's really this dynamic that I think people are turning into every week to talk about the reality and the horror of the attempted coup by Trump, but also the hope in fighting back. And that's really inspiring people. |
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