[SPEAKER_03]: Access moody.

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to One Nation, Indivisible.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Andrew L.

Sital, a constitutional attorney and the author of the founding myth and American crusade.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a podcast about religion, the law, and the battle for America's soul.

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be separating church and state defending freedom and equality and fighting Christian nationalism.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you haven't already signed up for our weekly bonus content and add free listening at access monday.uslfgthokes.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have been on vacation, my friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: I took a lovely trip to South Carolina.

[SPEAKER_00]: The FFRF convention was happening, my amazing wife, Liz, was there doing her thing with FFRF and I had the kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: with some family friends at a beach house.

[SPEAKER_00]: Couple miles away, it was wonderful.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was completely logged out of everything I didn't listen to podcasts.

[SPEAKER_00]: I did a bunch of reading, but all for fun.

[SPEAKER_00]: None of the heavy stuff stayed away from the news, stayed away from social media, needed the break.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to do some self-care during this time if we're gonna continue to fight.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was great, fantastic, highly recommend North Murdoch beach in the off season, there was nobody there for some, it was closed down, it looked like I did a morning run on the beach and it was like a zombie apocalypse because there was nobody there.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was amazing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also it was 80 degrees in sunny and the water was warm so if you're from Wisconsin like me and my kids like it's there's this is a fantastic vacation.

[SPEAKER_00]: but the point is that even with my media blackout and even trying to stay out of things, I [SPEAKER_00]: her two stories still broke through for me and maybe it was more when I was catching up but really they I think they did break through and the first was Trump's demolition of the east wing of the White House.

[SPEAKER_00]: A historic building you know this is the People's House this belongs to us and Donald Trump is bulldozing it.

[SPEAKER_00]: and putting up what's likely going to be half a billion dollar ballroom where he can wine and dine his kleptocratic friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: And some of the biggest companies, including meta, including Google, including Lockheed Martin and Apple are apparently donating to fund this [SPEAKER_00]: you by now you've heard a lot about this you've heard a lot of the lovely funny quips that this is the let the meat cake there've been some really all yes to all of that well done everybody but the other story for me that broke through I want to share it's a clip this is Steve Bannon [SPEAKER_00]: You will know Steve Bannon, one of the operators on the right, who helped get Trump elected the first time.

[SPEAKER_00]: The guy who tells their side to flood their zone with shit, Bannon didn't interview with the economist, the magazine.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to play this short clip.

[SPEAKER_01]: And does he need a third time in order to see that job through you?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he's going to get a third term.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Trump 28, Trump is going to be president and 28.

[SPEAKER_01]: And people just started to get accommodated with that.

[SPEAKER_02]: So what about the 22nd Amendment?

[SPEAKER_01]: There's many different alternatives.

[SPEAKER_01]: At the appropriate time, we'll lay out what the plan is.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there's a plan and President Trump will be the president and 28.

[SPEAKER_01]: We had longer odds in 16 and longer odds in 24 than we got in 28.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason that I want to focus on these two stories is that they are the same story.

[SPEAKER_00]: they're exactly the same story.

[SPEAKER_00]: Donald Trump is not building a half a billion dollar Trump ballroom, which is you know what it's going to be called on the White House to give to history.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, this is not going to be something that is done probably, maybe by hit the end of his second term.

[SPEAKER_00]: The last day he is eligible to hold the presidency.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's building this because he thinks he's going to get to use it.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's building this because he is going to try to retain power after he is constitutionally ineligible to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I actually had the idea for the will Trump stop after his second term will he run again podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: very early on when Bradley and I were talking about the possibility of me doing a podcast because this, you know, of a constitutional attorney, this centers around the constitutional amendment, we call the 22nd amendment, not we call it, it is the 22nd amendment, which we'll get to in a minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Trump started floating this pushing for this very early on.

[SPEAKER_00]: in this term.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the second national prayer breakfast, yes, there were two national prayer breakfast this year, because Christian nationalism y'all, Trump opened by suggesting that the constitutional restraints on him running for a third term, a third time don't apply.

[SPEAKER_00]: they don't apply to him and barely three minutes into that address and again this is this is back in February he is not even in office for three weeks he says this and I do that despite the fact that they say I can't run again that's the expression sure then somebody said I don't think you can oh [SPEAKER_00]: And just listen to the way he emphasized that, rewind a minute and re-listen to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: They say, I can't run again.

[SPEAKER_00]: In his mind, this is just another norm, another barrier with no teeth, words, it's just words to him and words have never stopped him.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is what he is telling us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, this is back in February.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is not the only time he's done this.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, this has been very, very common and an undercover aspect of Trump's presidency.

[SPEAKER_00]: On February 20th, at a White House black history event, he said this.

[SPEAKER_03]: Should I run again, you tell me, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, [SPEAKER_00]: Again, on February 20th at the Republican Governor's Association at the annual dinner, he did it again, twice in the same day, and it just moments away from the second national prayer practice where he did it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what he said.

[SPEAKER_03]: Three weeks, can you believe that six?

[SPEAKER_03]: So we've got that money, and I got to spend it somewhere, and they tell me I'm not allowed to run.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not sure.

[SPEAKER_03]: Is that true?

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not sure.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I can't spend it on me.

[SPEAKER_03]: I guess that means I'm going to be spending and in some of my friends, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of my friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: And again, on that same day, February 20th, the same day that Trump is dropping these hints.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they're not really hints.

[SPEAKER_00]: These aren't dog whistles.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are fall chords.

[SPEAKER_00]: Steve Bannon, who we heard earlier, saying this again this week, and who we know has Trump's ear floated this at CPAC and not just floated it, lead the crowd in a chant.

[SPEAKER_02]: The future of Maga is Donald J.

Trump.

[SPEAKER_02]: We want Trump in 28.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what they can stand.

[SPEAKER_02]: A man like Trump comes along only once or twice in a country's history.

[SPEAKER_02]: Right?

[SPEAKER_02]: We want Trump.

[SPEAKER_02]: We want Trump.

[SPEAKER_02]: We want Trump.

[SPEAKER_02]: We want Trump.

[SPEAKER_02]: We want Trump.

[SPEAKER_00]: Folks, the Raptors are testing the fences.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know the story, the Raptors get out.

[SPEAKER_00]: They successfully test those fences.

[SPEAKER_00]: Representative Andy Ogles, I'm not sure if that's how you say his name or if it's Andy Ogles, that would be probably more fitting, given that I'm sure this guy's got a scandal in that regard coming up at some point in his career.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's a Christian nationalist and a Trumpist with some deep ties to the worst Christian nationalist groups and worst Christian nationalist dark money out there.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's actually already written and proposed a constitutional amendment that would get Trump around the 22nd Amendment and he proposed this on January 23rd of this year that this is the first this first days first week of Trump's second term [SPEAKER_00]: And they just, real quick, before any of you out there listening are getting excited like about, oh, go ahead and do it, oh, Glace, you know, we'll just bring Obama in.

[SPEAKER_00]: The amendment is written so that it would exclude Obama and every other president except for Grover Cleveland who is long dead, it would just let Trump run.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I do not like the way that this has been talked about and covered to the extent that it has.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's that's what I want to spend some time with you on today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think this is definitely going to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is 100% a fight that we are going to have to have.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was talking about this on social media before the podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: and I think the biggest indicator is not just that they are telling us, they are, clearly, but we need to remember that Trump did not leave office willingly the first time.

[SPEAKER_00]: January 6, 2021, I mean, he fomented a violent insurrection to retain power.

[SPEAKER_00]: some of you know that I authored several sections of the January 6th and Christian Nationalism report.

[SPEAKER_00]: I helped organize and spearhead the entire thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a joint report by the Freedom from Religion Foundation and the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's very, very proud of that work alongside others like Catherine Stewart and Andrew Whitehead and Sam Perry and Jamartezby and Theo Butler.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a remarkable piece of reporting and recording and it's especially important given the way that the January 6 committee refused to touch on Christian nationalism.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the reason I mentioned that now is because I have watched thousands of hours of footage from that day.

[SPEAKER_00]: I watched so much for that report, and for the epilogue of the founding myth, the paperback, which included a write-up of January 6th, one of the first that was ever published.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I can tell you from having watched so many hours of footage, and seeing how close we were, [SPEAKER_00]: This country was much closer than you realized to seeing that mob, snatching a few members of Congress.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was a violent, entitled mob that believed what they were doing was justified by their god.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was the ultimate permission.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, I am talking a few seconds difference here, a few seconds difference there, and this would have led to an assassination of a member of Congress.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was very real political violence.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just failed to achieve its stated end, which was keeping Donald Trump in power.

[SPEAKER_00]: And given that that was the end, what possible excuse do we have for thinking he wouldn't do this again?

[SPEAKER_00]: or do so in a smarter way, a way that is more likely to succeed.

[SPEAKER_00]: What possible excuse other than fear?

[SPEAKER_00]: Can we have for expecting this man a grifter and criminal who is only staying out of jail as long as he's in power and who has a mast?

[SPEAKER_00]: At this point it must be untold billions by abusing that power in the grossest and most corrupt ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: What possible excuse do we have for thinking that of course he's not going to do this?

[SPEAKER_00]: He is going to try, and he's going to do it in a less sloppy and smarter way.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is why Steve Bannon is out there talking about this so much, planning for this, so telling us that there is a plan in place.

[SPEAKER_00]: What possible it's used to we have for not focusing on this and fighting this and expecting this to happen?

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a given, friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to listen to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC, who was on all in with Chris Hayes, and had something to say about this, which I think is important, and it does come from some very good scholarly work on combating authoritarianism and combating fascism, and it is [SPEAKER_00]: always, always, always worth us remembering these points.

[SPEAKER_00]: And she's talking about this also in the context of the shutdown.

[SPEAKER_04]: I think there's two things that are happening at once, and this is something that's very important for people to understand.

[SPEAKER_04]: One, there absolutely is an unprecedented abuse of power, destruction of norms, erosion of our government and our democracy in order to prop up in authoritarian style of governance.

[SPEAKER_04]: That is happening.

[SPEAKER_04]: However, they are weaker than they look.

[SPEAKER_04]: And it is important that we remember that because what they rely on is the impression of power, the perception of inevitability, in us giving up in advance, to say, oh, what's going to happen if I stand up, et cetera, nothing's going to happen.

[SPEAKER_04]: They rely on that perception of inevitability and power so that people comply in advance [SPEAKER_04]: And at the end of the day, Donald Trump is at record levels of unpopularity in his tenure.

[SPEAKER_04]: The Republican House is at record levels of unpopularity.

[SPEAKER_04]: They are underwater across the board and they know it.

[SPEAKER_04]: And that is causing them to double down in public, but it is backfiring.

[SPEAKER_04]: That is why whether it's a shutdown, whether it's all of this, [SPEAKER_04]: They want us to blink first, and we have too much to save, protecting people is too important a task for us to give up before anything even starts.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I just, first of all, she's so good and so articulate and so brilliant and just such an amazing fighter for people.

[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot comply in advance with a third term.

[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot sound defeatist when it comes to Donald Trump staying in power past 2028.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are some people who I really, really respect to are really, really brilliant and the about their Jeff Charlotte who are deeply, deeply worried about this and whether or not we're going to have an election and what that election might even look like, whether it's going to all kind of, and we should be worried about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we should also not comply in advance.

[SPEAKER_00]: We should not assume that this is inevitable.

[SPEAKER_00]: We should not treat this as inevitable Donald Trump is not fucking Thanos.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can be stopped if people stand up.

[SPEAKER_00]: If millions of people go out and march as they did last weekend at the no kings protest.

[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot sound a fetus.

[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot be de fetus.

[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot comply in advance with this third term.

[SPEAKER_00]: But nor can we assume that our norms and our traditions and our courts will hold on this.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what no kings was all about.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can't expect the institutions to save us.

[SPEAKER_00]: They will not.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are going to have to save us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are going to have to prevent this.

[SPEAKER_00]: it is it is genuinely going to be up to us to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And again, AOC is brilliant communicator there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do think one thing we should do is spend a little less time talking about this in terms of democracy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because that doesn't speak to people as much as we think.

[SPEAKER_00]: We should spend a little less time talking about democracy and a little more time talking about freedom.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll be, look, I will be the first to say, I have been bad about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have not been doing this enough, but I have been having a lot of conversations these days.

[SPEAKER_00]: about what democracy means to people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Brad and I were actually, we were working on a big project a couple of weekends ago, and we were having a pretty deep conversation about this as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: And look, we all know this is something the Christian Nationalists don't care about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christian Nationalism is fundamentally opposed to democracy.

[SPEAKER_00]: To their to the Christian national is fundamental vision for this country the idea of a Christian nation and a democracy do not tell They are mutually exclusive But it's not just the Christian nationalists that you know, they're actively trying to undermine democracy But there are a lot of younger folks who don't feel like the democratic system like this democracy has worked for them [SPEAKER_00]: They don't feel like the democracy is doing what it is supposed to do and protecting their interests.

[SPEAKER_00]: And are disenchanted, feeling disenfranchised.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is, I think, a fair feeling, and there are institutional aspects to our system, the Senate, the Electoral College, that do make it feel because it's true, like your vote matters less, Jerry Manoring, another big one, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: These are all things that this Supreme Court has okay, or which are built and baked into our system.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I was reading a really interesting and incisive draft of a book about how Christian Nationalists are working not just to get rid of democracy and not to return to a Christian nation.

[SPEAKER_00]: but to straight up overthrow democracy and install what might be what is turned in the book in American Caesar and essentially a king.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, this is why the no kings rallies are so spot on and why that simple phrase no kings is right on the money.

[SPEAKER_00]: And why we ought to continue to have those and people ought to continue to show up and see more and more and more but [SPEAKER_00]: We need to spend more time talking about this as freedom, that if Donald Trump retains power, he is robbing you of your freedom.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's robbing you of your freedom to choose, your ability to self-govern.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is trampling that freedom.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is arguably the first freedom that we have in this country.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is what the Revolutionary War was all about, the right to self-government.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what the Declaration of Independence, the political philosophy that it lays down.

[SPEAKER_00]: When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's god of it, that we are talking about self-government.

[SPEAKER_00]: When Jefferson wrote in the declaration, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the government, he's talking about self-government.

[SPEAKER_00]: that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute a new government, self-government.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because Donald Trump's seizing power beyond his second term, [SPEAKER_00]: would be the culmination of a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, even seeing a design to reduce us under absolute despotism, so it would be our right, our duty to throw off such government and provide new guards for their future security, our future security, and paraphrasing from the declaration there.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is about our freedom.

[SPEAKER_00]: Democracy is a way that we guard our freedom.

[SPEAKER_00]: Donald Trump retaining power into another term would destroy that freedom.

[SPEAKER_00]: And finally, and this may be is the most important.

[SPEAKER_00]: I actually think we have to abandon labeling this at their term.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you can hear throughout this conversation, throughout this monologue.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've had a hard time doing that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody is talking about this like a third term.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've got to abandon that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is seizing power illegally, unconstitutionally.

[SPEAKER_00]: It hit me up on social media.

[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me what you think we should call this.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is not a third term, because we have the 20 second amendment.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the 20 second amendment says, no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice.

[SPEAKER_00]: And no person who has held the office of president or acted as president for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, they are going to try to get around this language.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what Steve Bannon is talking about.

[SPEAKER_00]: I quite certain they've got a team of lawyers working on this and law professors and everyone of them, well, you know, my feelings about disbarring these people.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to rely on that elected language.

[SPEAKER_00]: No person shall be elected to the office.

[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't say they can hold those so they can't be elected.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to, that's how they're going to try to get around this.

[SPEAKER_00]: If Trump is running, he's running an election.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is barred from that election by the Constitution.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is a Congressional Research Service report on the 22nd Amendment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, on term limits in Presidents and talks about the 22nd Amendment.

[SPEAKER_00]: It says the 22nd Amendment ratified in 1951, limits presidential tenure.

[SPEAKER_00]: No person may be elected more than president more than twice.

[SPEAKER_00]: It also specifies that vice presidents who succeed to that office may be elected to two full terms if they serve less than two terms of the president of the president of the president they succeeded sorry.

[SPEAKER_00]: It also specifies that vice presidents who succeed to the office may be elected to two full terms if they served less than two years of the term of the president they succeeded.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you know, you could get like nine and a half years, basically.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your president, the guy who you're the person who you are serving vice president for leaves office after a year and a half, you can run and then you can run again.

[SPEAKER_00]: So couldn't Trump do something like have B Vance's vice president and then have Vance resigned.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they'll try something like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that runs into a 12th Amendment problem because the 12th Amendment says that no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to that of vice president.

[SPEAKER_00]: And since Donald Trump could not run for a second term as president, he would be ineligible.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Trump could never take the VP office.

[SPEAKER_00]: But all of this and this is the main point folks all of that and it would be super fun for me to do a deep dive I want to do a deep dive onto this and explain to you why those would or wouldn't work and get into a elected But it is beside the fucking point It is that would be a very fun exercise in some of the skills I learned in law school But the bottom line is that all of that is untested [SPEAKER_00]: The 20 second amendment is untested, unlitigated, and it all goes back to AOC's point, not to capitulate in advance, not to let him do this, not to give in to any kind of validation of this as anything other than a complete attempt to eviscerate our American freedoms.

[SPEAKER_00]: not to give this to the captured Supreme Court to decide, though it's probably gonna get there to rage rage against the dying of our Republic.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is going to get ugly and this is going to be a fight that we have to have and every one of you out there listening should start thinking about how you're going to have it and how you're going to talk about this not as a fight for democracy as a fight for liberty and freedom not as a third term but as a seizure of power against the constitution we are going to have this fight get ready for it I'll see you all next week [SPEAKER_00]: This has been one nation indivisible, I'm Andrew Sidal, until next time.