From WNYC Studios.

I'm Brian Lehrer.

This is my daily politics podcast.

It's Thursday, February 13th.

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laws be repealed?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, if a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation,

that would be illegal.

If a judge tried to command the attorney general and how to use her discretion as a prosecutor,

that's also illegal.

And he wrote, judges aren't allowed to control the

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