This is the final battle with you at my side, we will demolish the deep state.
We will expel the warmongers from our government,
we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists.
We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.
>> Speaker 2: That was Trump speaking at one of his rallies in Michigan just a few
weeks ago.
Basically giving us all a preview on what he intends to do should he get elected in
the 2024 presidential election.
Now, one thing that he's laser focused on is dismantling the so
called administrative state in order to consolidate and
centralize power in the executive branch.
Essentially doing away with our system of checks and balances and
doing away with the independence of federal government agencies.
With that said, let's get to the specifics.
Trump intends to bring independent agencies- like
the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for
television and Internet companies.
And the Federal Trade Commission, which, of course,
enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against
businesses under direct presidential control.
Now, again, these are supposed to be independent agencies.
Yes, they're federal agencies, but the President of the United States is
not supposed to influence these agencies or have any impact on whether or
not the heads of these agencies remain in those positions or get fired.
Now, this, again, would be the execution of a very
long held conservative agenda undercutting the so called administrative state.
And if you're wondering, okay, what does that mean?
What is the administrative state, right?
Is it just bureaucracy, needless bureaucracy?
The answer is no, these are government agencies tasked with doing incredibly
important things, including regulating the food we eat, the drugs we take,
protecting the environment, keeping consumer products safe for us.
When it comes to the Federal Trade Commission supposed to weigh in and
prevent major conglomerates or major mergers from happening,
Trump wants none of that.
So he wants to revive the practice of impounding funds,
refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president
doesn't like- a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon.
And there's a lot more to get to, but before I do, Cenk,
what are your thoughts on all of this?
>> Speaker 3: This is exactly why it can't be Trump.
And so people don't get it, they go, okay, like, Ron DeSantis is a terrible person.
He passed these awful bills in Florida and he's doing this homophobic campaign, etc.
And you're right, those are all terrible things, and I don't like him and
it's terrible.
But that's not fascism, that's just a horrible human being with policies we
massively disagree with that would take away rights.
So it's don't minimize it, right?
But fascism is when you do take over the government and
you don't allow democracy back in.
And that's this, that's this,
this is not a little bit around the edges where you go, well, look,
I think the Federal Trade Commission has too much independent authority.
I'd like to be able to fire the head of the commission if they're not doing
the right things, etc.
Now, that's not a good idea, but maybe there's a couple of proposals
here that could be debatable under a rational, normal situation.
But no, the bulk of this is no, if Congress says to spend money on this,
I'm not going to because I'm the President and I can do whatever I want.
All those agencies, I could fire anyone I want, including the ones that are supposed
to be independent for a really good reason, like the Justice Department.
If the Justice Department is not independent, then it becomes politicized.
So these guys, the MAGA guys, think Trump is an angel,
it's unbelievable they think that, but okay.
But even if you think Trump is an angel, well, what if a Democrat was next time and
you think the Democrats are satanic and all that stuff?
Then they would also have this authority.
>> Speaker 2: Exactly. >> Speaker 3: And
they could do whatever they want- >> Exactly.
>> And it doesn't matter what bills you pass.
And then they could say, hey, the Justice Department is now no longer independent.
So now we're gonna put all of our opponents in prison,
whether a Republican does it to a Democrat or a Democrat does it to a Republican.
I thought you guys hated that, aren't you guys now saying,
I can't believe the Justice Department has been politicized.
And now you say, let's politicize it way more and
let the President basically be a dictator?
>> Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I think when you have this ideologue mentality,
it's hard to break past that mentality and think clearly and logically
about what it actually means to undermine our system of checks and balances.
Because this isn't just about undermining these independent federal government
agencies.
He also wants to do away with our system of checks and
balances when it comes to Congress,
the money they appropriate for various legislative proposals.
If Trump decides, no, I disagree with Congress's appropriations here.
And I'm not gonna allow for this money to be utilized the way it was intended to
be utilized under what he wants to do in dismantling the administrative state.
He would just do whatever he wants with that money.
>> Speaker 3: Guys, it's not debatable if you say the President can ignore Congress.
We don't have a democracy anymore, we don't have our form of government,
we have basically a dictator.
And so why is this debatable?
And so, and by the way, MAGA guys, you know who came up with the really
pushed idea of the unitary executive authority?
Dick Cheney.
He was, and one of the first rants that I ever did on Young Turks so
you could find it on YouTube is me just yelling
at the top of my lungs about the unitary executive authority.
This one, right?
And how Cheney was planning to have the executive branch take over and
basically destroy our democracy.
Now, MAGA hates Dick Cheney, by the way,
the other people in that group are Bill Barr, John Bolton.
So, yeah, conservatives in that wing of the party have
hated democracy from day this.
And now, ironically, Trump is now heralding it.
Now, another very disturbing part is the guys coming up with the actual plans is
the Heritage Foundation.
So that means there's now corporate interests going, maybe fascism not so bad.
>> Speaker 2: Well, think about why that is.
Because even with all the corruption that we talk about on the show regularly,
right, there are still some safeguards in place to ensure that
we're not completely taken over by corporate rule.
But if corporations have complete control of one lever of power,
the executive branch.
And the executive branch succeeds in dismantling the administrative state and
our system of checks and balances.
Well, all corporations have to worry about is ensuring that they're in the pocket of
whoever the president is.
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, and guys, so the MAGA guys, actually,
a lot of them now hate big business, that's a good instinct.
It's not that you should hate business,
it's that you should hate their ability to bribe government officials.
In my book, I talk about how the corporate interests took over the Supreme Court, and
I explain exactly how they did that.
And so that book is called Justice Is Coming.
Now, this is them trying to take over the executive branch.
So then they would own two branches, and then the executive branch,
according to this unitary executive theory, can just ignore Congress.
So then Congress is irrelevant and those are theoretically our representatives.
They'd already bought them anyway, but this would give them extra power.
And I know you think Trump's an angel, but
you think Trump wouldn't do something for money?
If corporate interests or rich people said, hey, here's $100 million,
do whatever we tell you.
Will Trump do it?
Definitely, that's another thing I wrote about in the book.
He did it already for Sheldon Adelson, who gave him $100 million in 2016 and 2020.
He gave him everything he wanted, he even made his wife, he gave his wife,
Miriam Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He'll give away anything.
But even if it isn't Trump, you think Biden won't do whatever corporations want?
You think Manchin wouldn't do anything corporations want?
This is handing the government over to the bad guys.
And if MAGA all this populist uprising was all to hand power back to corporations and
big business, what are you doing you schmucks?
>> Right, yeah.
And again, the whole point of the unitary executive theory,
it's to reject the idea that government is composed of three separate
branches with overlapping powers to check and balance each other.
I would venture to say that that's one of the greatest parts of our government,
the system of checks and balances.
And consolidating too much power in one branch of government is a complete and
utter disaster.
And that's what we're seeing here.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, and there by the way- >> If he succeeds in it, of course.
>> By the way, there's one other thing that conservatives should theoretically
hate, but that is part and parcel of this.
Since none of these agencies, including the IRS, the Education Department, etc.,
would no longer be independent.
Then the president, any president, Republican or Democrat, could say,
I don't care about factual correctness anymore,
these agencies will now do political correctness.
So now the IRS will investigate all of my political opponents, and I can do it now.
I have unitary executive authority, and
the Education Department will do whatever I want.
Either teach that there's no racism at all or that everything in the world is racist.
It doesn't matter, because now it's all political.
So since it's political, either the left or the right,
whoever gets into power with this theory has unlimited power.
And if you believe in democracy, you would hate this plan.
This is exactly what fascism looks like.
So that's why Trump is a unique danger to our democracy.