Who Has the Power to "Reopen" the Country?

We the People

National Constitution Center

News, News Commentary, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2020

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As the United States seems to begin to flatten its curve of new coronavirus cases, President Trump has claimed he has the authority to reopen the economy and the nation. Evaluating that claim in relation to both presidential power under Article II and state power under the 10th Amendment—professors John Yoo and Alison LaCroix join host Jeffrey Rosen. They give their takes on the president’s claims and conduct in the midst of coronavirus and evaluate what he can and can’t do in light of the system of separation of powers and federalism; comment on whether the president can or should withdraw from the World Health Organization, suspend immigration, and support citizen protests against governors; and place these contemporary debates in historical context. A term that will be helpful to know for this week—federalism. Federalism is the constitutional division of power between U.S. state governments and the federal government. Professors Yoo and LaCroix detail the history of federalism and how it’s evolved from the founding to today.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and welcome to We The People,
0:15.0	a weekly show of constitutional debate.
0:17.8	The National Constitution Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit chartered by Congress to increase awareness and understanding of the Constitution
0:26.2	among the American people.
0:28.6	As the U.S. begins to flatten the curve of new coronavirus cases, the president and governors are debating who has
0:36.7	the authority to reopen the country.
0:40.9	This debate over the limits of executive and federal power is contemporary, but there have been similar clashes throughout American history.
0:50.0	Joining us to dive into the debate about presidential power, federalism, and the Corona crisis
0:56.8	are two of America's leading experts on presidential power and federalism.
1:01.3	John Yu is the Emmanuel Heller Professor of Law at Berkeley Law and Director of the
1:06.2	Korea Law Center, the California Constitution Center, and the Law School's Program in Public
1:11.5	Law and policy.
1:14.4	From 2001 to 2003 he served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal
1:18.5	Council at the U.S. Department of Justice.
1:20.8	His new book is Defender-In- Chief, Donald Trump's fight for presidential power.
1:27.0	John, it is great to have you back on the show.
1:30.0	Jeff, thanks for having me back. I hope everyone in my hometown of Philadelphia is doing well,
1:34.4	even though I heard the governor try to close all the alcohol stores. Now that's a constitutional right
1:39.7	we can all defend. Absolutely. We'll look forward to hearing your arguments
1:43.1	about the arguments we can mobilize.
1:45.4	And Allison Lacroix is Robert Newton-Reed,
1:48.0	professor of law at the University of Chicago Law
	...

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