It's the Brian Lera Show on WNYC.

Good morning, everyone.

First of all, thanks to Bridget Bergen, Amina Serna, Tiffany Hansen, and David First, First in the hearts of his countrymen,

for filling in the last six shows, little dental work, a few days' vacation, and poof, it adds up to a week away.

So, listeners, I hope you were nice to the substitute hosts.

Thanks again to them, and it's good to be back.

Now, when Donald Trump was re-elected president, we said we would follow his second term

on at least two tracks, policy and democracy.

I know you can't always separate them out neatly, but it's one thing to have policy debates

on which interested parties can disagree.

You know, should there be an education department? Should there be tariffs? Should the Biden climate laws be repealed? Should

Black History Months observances be banned in the U.S. military? Yes, they're really doing

that, did you hear? What about foreign aid and federal funding cutoffs to hospitals providing

gender affirming care for minors?

These are intense, consequential policy changes. I don't have to tell you.

And we've been talking about all of them not to diminish the enormity of what's happening in any of those policy areas and more.

But it's yet another thing if we're being led into an authoritarian form of government,

and in this segment we'll talk about that.

At the top of the list of those concerns right now,

Vice President J.D. Vance suggested in a tweet over the weekend,

you've probably heard this,

that Trump can refuse to obey court orders that he doesn't agree with. The tweet said, quote,

...