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Listen, all you New Yorkers. Taxi!
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This is the 77 WABC minicast.
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And at any moment, the House is expected to vote
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on these articles of impeachment, the resolution put forward by
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very much a strange Congressman Thomas Massey. It's against Pete Hegseth,
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the Secretary of War. So, I mean, are there even
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any grounds for it? And how much is this, as
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Pete Hegseth says, political sabotage? And joining us now is
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Professor Alan Dershowitz. Professor Dershowitz, what do you make of
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all this?
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Well, you know, I wrote the book on it. I
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defended President Trump against a similar unconstitutional series of charges
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of abuse of power in the Senate yesterday. rejected it,
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and I turned it into a book about the impeachment clause. And,
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you know, if you take Congressman Massey at his word,
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he should be impeached because one of the grounds is
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doing something that's not in the Constitution. In his case,
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he says, fighting a war. But in Massey's case, having
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articles of impeachment for grounds that are clearly rejected, by
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the Constitution. The framers of the Constitution did suggest, some
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of them, that abuse of power ought to be grounded.
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It was voted down. James Madison, the father of the Constitution,
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said that would take away power from the president and
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give too much power to Congress. So what Massey is
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doing is clearly unconstitutional. And I suspect, although I don't
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know for sure, that even some Democrats will reject that,
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and this will be seen as a futile political attempt
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just to weaken the administration. And I think we're going
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to see two years of this. We're going to see
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two years of lawfare, two years of misusing the Constitution,
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two years of trying to get even, and two years
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of not doing the business of the American people, which
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is trying to restore affordability. They're interested more in revenge,
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getting equal, having hearings and having contempt proceedings and all
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of that. That's what we're going to see for two years.
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You know, one of the things, one of the articles
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or one of the statements I should say that I
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heard today from Jason Crowe, Democratic Colorado. He came out
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and he actually said, well, Pete Hegseth lied to the
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president and to Congress when he essentially said, oh, this
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is only going to last a few weeks. You know,
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here's our mission. I mean, that's preposterous, you know, that
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trying to create a schism between him and the president.
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And first of all, there's no evidence of that. Obviously,
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they would like activities to be as short and brief
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as possible, but And then he also went after the
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drug boats. He said, we should go after Hegseth because
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they took out these civilians on a drug boat. Well,
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the civilians happen to be drug dealers.
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Well, not only that, but, you know, under the theory
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that you just put forward, General Eisenhower clearly lied to
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President Roosevelt on D-Day. when he said, and he gave
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him an estimate of how long it would take to
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get to Berlin, and the estimate was wrong. And thousands
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of people, French civilians, German civilians, were killed in the process.
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That's our greatest generation. People make mistakes in war, but
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the Constitution... gives the authority to make mistakes to the commander-in-chief.
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And the commander-in-chief, under Congress's rules, has the right to
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appoint cabinet members. And the president appointed Hesketh a cabinet member,
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and he trusts his judgment. He wasn't lied to. You know,
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people make judgment errors, and they make them both ways.
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That's why the word is estimate. That's why the word
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we use is estimate. We're not using the word exact.
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That's right. And some of the allegations were over-optimistic. Some
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were over-pessimistic. We actually handled some of the war more
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quickly than was estimated and some less quickly. Clearly, the
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framers of the Constitution
Load full transcript
said that policy differences are not
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a ground for impeachment. It's a ground for elections. And
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we saw the election and we saw that voters rejected
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much of effort that was done in the war. I
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think mistakenly. So I think the war will go down
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in history as an important war and one that was
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worth fighting, but the voters rejected it. And that's where
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it belongs in the hands of the voters, not in
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the hands of the Senate or the house in terms
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of impeachment. So this is a misuse of the constitution.
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Judge Weinberg.
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So professor Dershowitz for the longest time, I was against
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any change to the, The filibuster rules. I thought that
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Thune was right and Trump and Trump was wrong, even
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though I understood why.
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I think it's still I think it's still that way.
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I think if you have if they try to pass
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something without 60 votes, then you're going to have civil
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war in this country.
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Well, but what do you think is going to happen
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with respect to the way the Democrats are going to
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play this?
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Well, the Democrats are going to play it every way
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they can. They only care about one thing, winning. So
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if ending the filibuster is going to help them, they're
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going to try to end it. Not helping it this
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time is going to help them. There's no principles there.
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There's no, you know, kind of constitutional principles at stake here.
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All we're talking about is who gets the partisan advantage today, tomorrow,
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and the day after tomorrow. Nobody's thinking about the long-term
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future of America. Nobody's thinking about preserving the Constitution on
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the 250th anniversary. of our independence. Nobody's caring about that.
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This is all partisan warfare by the Democrats. And they succeeded.
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And they won an overwhelming election, unfortunately. And I don't
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think that's going to help the American public.
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Craig Eden.
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You know
what?
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This election was so abysmal. I mean, shame on the
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American people for not looking at everything, looking at the
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big picture and saying, we need change in America. Instead,
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they just threw out all the Republicans. I mean, nothing's
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going to get done over the next two years except
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the Dems are going to burn it all down with impeachments, investigations, indictments, allegations.
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They're going to come after every single one in Trump's administration.
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And it could have been avoided. I had made a
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recommendation that nobody took seriously, and that is keep oil
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prices down. Don't let the oil companies, you know, this
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is all the fault of the oil companies. They made
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more money. As a result of the closing of the
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Strait of Hormuz, they weren't affected by it. They don't
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send oil through the Strait. So oil prices went up
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all over the rest of the world, except in America.
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But because American companies stupidly price their oil based on
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a cartel around the world, they raised their prices, made
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enormous profits. didn't give the money back to the American consumer,
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but put the money in their pockets. And now, you know,
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the Republicans are being blamed for that. The blame squarely
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lies with the oil companies and the gas companies who
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profiteered off this war, unfortunately.
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Well, I mean, it's... Let's see what happens next week.
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And what do you think if the Democrats try to
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push through a law with, who's going to listen to them?
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Can they pass it? Can they try to pass a
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law with less than 60 votes?
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They can. They can try to do that. They can
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try to change that.
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And then what happens? What happens?
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Then it gets vetoed. And then you need 67 to
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overdo the veto. So it's, you know, it's just a
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matter of time. But you can't pass, you can't turn
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an act into law unless the president signs it. And they,
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at the moment, don't have enough votes.
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So nothing's going to happen. Everything's going to be a standstill.
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Unless, what about the filibuster? What about the filibuster?
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No, as Professor Dershowitz said, that's just the rules of
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the Senate. The Senate can change the rules.
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You can change that. What's going to happen, what's going
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to happen is we're going to see hearing after hearing
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after hearing. We're going to see people held in contempt.
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What people don't recognize is that you don't need the
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Justice Department to put somebody in jail for contempt of
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the Senate or contempt of the House.
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They have their own jails.
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The Senate and the House have their own jails in
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the basement. And they can, and they have in the past.
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put people in jail without going through the Justice Department.
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The most recent case was a long time ago, 1936,
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but it involved an assistant secretary, 10-day trial. He was convicted,
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and he was sentenced to two weeks in jail. They
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could do that, and I would put nothing past the
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Democrats because they think that the Republicans control the Justice Department,
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and so they want to get things done their way,
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and they're going to try.
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Yeah, boy.
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Professor Dershowitz, buckle up.
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Wow. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. I've done all
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the research already.
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We're going to get you a good lawyer.
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I'm ready. I'm available. Good. Thanks for everything.
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Thank you, Professor.