'Unmaking the Presidency'
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2020
⏱️ 89 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"Unmaking the Presidency: Donald Trump's War on the World's Most Powerful Office," by Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes, was published today. The Brookings Institution hosted a launch event, moderated by Fred Hiatt, in which Susan and Ben discussed the book. "Unmaking the Presidency" is an attempt to explore the Trump presidency through the lens of the norms of the traditional presidency that he has violated. It's a look at his vision of the presidency, a look at the range of presidential powers that vision affects, and a look at the history of how those norms developed.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
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| 0:55.9 | We have the entire Mueller investigation. We have the Mueller report, which also shows |
| 1:00.7 | shocking, stunning, historic abuses of office. Bob Mueller testifies, it's not a good |
| 1:07.6 | enough television ratings, or people say, well, that's the end of sort of the hopes of |
| 1:12.1 | impeachment. And the next day, the president picks up the phone to have this phone conversation |
| 1:18.2 | with President Zelensky. And so this president's instinct to always up the ante does appear to be almost pathological to his nature, sort of a part of his being. |
| 1:32.3 | And so I do think that we have to think about sort of the post acquittal. |
| 1:37.3 | What happens when the president has called your bluff? |
| 1:43.7 | I'm Benjamin Wittes, and this is the Lawfare podcast, January 21st, 2020. |
| 1:50.9 | Unmaking the presidency, Donald Trump's War on the World's Most Powerful Office, |
| 1:55.6 | was published today by Susan Hennessy and me. |
| 2:01.0 | And we had a launch event at the Brookings Institution, which we are bringing you the entirety of. |
| 2:09.3 | Fred Hyatt, editorial page editor of The Washington Post, moderated a deep discussion with Susan and me about the book. |
| 2:19.8 | We also took questions from a live audience on this project, which we are very excited to unveil today. The book is an attempt |
| 2:28.0 | to explore the Trump presidency through the lens of the norms he has violated of the traditional presidency. |
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