Welcome to Talking Feds, a roundtable that brings together prominent former federal officials and special guests

for dynamic discussion of the most important political and legal topics of the day.

I'm Harry Lintman. After two weeks in which Donald Trump

strafed the constitutional landscape with barely a hint of resistance, this week brought the

first real pushback. Multiple lawsuits landed, aiming to enjoin key aspects of Trump's lawless power grabs, and the federal courts

by and large stepped up, putting a freeze on several of Trump's initiatives.

But inside the executive branch, where President wields substantially unchecked authority

over his own workforce, Trump continued to spread terror

and wreak havoc.

And in a moment of theatrical brinksmanship, Trump backed off his threats to slap tariffs

on Mexico and Canada after securing so-called concessions that in reality changed nothing but gave him an opportunity

to thump his chest. And Elon Musk continued to make colossal mischief and threaten the privacy,

rights and economic well-being of millions of Americans. To track the first real signs of pushback against the tyranny of

Trump 2.0 and to assess the consequences of some of his promised big economic moves, we welcome

an ideal panel all drawn from the ranks of the contrarian. And they are. The indefatigable Norm Eisen, a co-founder of the

contrarian, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institute and the co-founder

of state democracy defenders' action. He served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee

from 2019 to 2020,

including for the first impeachment of President Trump.

This is part of the valuable work.

Court of law, court of public opinion.

This is where they come together.

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