Are you saying now that you don't believe that he believes in executive overreach? I believe that he believes his mandate from the American people is to solve illegal immigration. And I would ask you the same question in reverse the law.
I thought that you were going to squirm out of that that that question. Yes, you did. And that's why I prepared for it because I I want to read you something.
At the core of Trump's candidacy is a call to for greater executive authority. You do you recognize that? Yeah, I wrote it.
Exactly. And here's what he hasn't changed. So, what has changed about you?
Charles Blow just completely cornered Scott Jennings live on air. Charles Blow brought receipts to expose conservative strategist Scott Jennings. Like, Blow literally pulls out a column Scott Jennings wrote back in 2016, ripping Trump apart for executive overreach, reads it back to him word for word, and watches Jennings completely fall apart trying to justify why he's now defending the exact same thing.
This is brutal. I have my thoughts I want to share. Let's get into it.
You're describing illegal immigration, which has been around for a long time as an invasion, which is fine for you if you want to do that. But why is that unusual that there's a process to go through to deport people? I mean, that's actually how this Do you know how long it takes for this process, this paperwork to get people out?
The guy that we've all been weeping and nashing teeth over, the uh, you know, guy we sent to El Salvador was in the country 14 years illegally. What about we got millions of people who have gained this system and now we're going to either you believe in the Constitution or you don't. And I believe in the sovereignty of the United States.
But do you believe in the Constitution? I believe in the sovereignty of the United States and I believe I believe we don't believe that Donald Trump should abide by the Constitution. Just a serious question.
Of course I do. And of course I believe Do you believe that he does? And I believe that he will follow just as he said what the Supreme Court says.
But the policy debate is worth having the very beginning. Millions upon millions of people are here and they will not leave. And he has to get I believe in in executive hold on a second always from the very beginning from 2016 he has believed in executive overreach we've all seen that he said it it was clear are you saying now that you don't believe that he believes in executive overreach I believe that he believes his mandate from the American people is to solve illegal immigration and I would ask you the same question in reverse did Joe Biden when he said he would faithfully uphold and execute the laws of this land not mean it when he decided to let millions upon millions of people into the country because he did not execute the law.
I thought that you were going to squirm out of that that that question. Yes, you did. And that's why I prepared for it because I I want to read you something.
At the core of Trump's candidacy is a call to for greater executive authority with willful disregard for the constitutional limits placed on our chief executive. Trump especially promises to force individual companies to do things he wants them to do or else he promises punishment to those who displease him which appeals to the miserable man at the airport bar. You do you recognize that?
Yeah, I wrote it. Exactly. And here's the deal.
He hasn't changed. So what has changed about you? And here's the difference between then and now.
This country has been invaded. The president was elected. So you change your opinion on the constitution?
No. My opinion is the president needs to pull every lever he can to solve illegal immigration. Answer that question by saying you don't my he actually admitted it.
Scott Jennings, the conservative commentator himself, wrote an article completely bashing Trump for having a willful disregard for the constitutional limits and then Charles Blow just lays it out on the table. Boom. I wrote it.
I mean, you know, Charles asks the ultimate question. Trump hasn't changed. So, what changed about you, Scott?
And Jennings response is basically, well, now we're being invaded, so the Constitution doesn't matter as much anymore. Or not even that, more like he's trying to say the rules change depending on how scared he is. That's crazy.
This is ridiculous, guys. Jennings completely exposes the hypocrisy of the entire establishment GOP right here. They used to pretend to care about constitutional limits and executive overreach when it was a Democrat or back in 2016 when they wanted to sound principled.
But now to please Donald Trump, they will literally throw their own written words into the trash live on television. Charles Blow isn't letting this slide at all. He exposes the hypocrisy perfectly.
Look at how Charles just lets the silence hang after Scott tries to defend the flip-flop. Let's keep watching. that every immigrant here is the same.
You can't believe that because they're not. They're not. I do.
I believe there's some good, there's some bad, there's some criminal. I believe I believe everybody who's here illegally is here illegally. Not all are violent, but all are here illegally.
How do you differentiate if nobody gets a hearing if you don't have due process? How do you distinguish one from the other? So, what you're saying is every person that's here in this country is a criminal, is a gang member, uh should be thrown in jail.
Every person who's here illegally, every person who is here illegally is in fact a criminal. Some of them do come here and commit violent crimes and still differentiate if you don't have a some have records and some don't break the news. They're all going away.
I want to make sure that we're not um straying from the point of this conversation which is a question about due process rights. And so I'll just ask really quickly. Do you believe that undocumented immigrants have to have due process rights?
That that's constitutionally what they are entitled to? I'm unsure of what that means in the context of some of the cases that we've been dealing with in the news lately because I've been looking at these people who have been here for 14 years, have been through numerous immigration court. All right, but what does it mean?
Let me bring the Supreme Court into this since you brought them up. This is what two different Supreme Court justices have said about this issue in the past. Do undocumented immigrants have the five freedoms?
Oh, I think so. I think anybody who's present in the United States uh has protections uh under the United States Constitution. The 14th amendment.
It doesn't speak of citizens as some some constitutions grant rights to citizens but our constitution says person and the person is every every person who is here documented or undocumented. Bata I wonder why it's so difficult to understand a pretty simple concept. If Trump wants to deport illegal immigrants he can do that but he ought to do it legally.
Oh my word. So now Scott Jennings is saying every person who's here illegally is in fact a criminal. Like dude, seriously, you're a political analyst and you don't know the difference between a civil infraction and a criminal offense?
And then the Abby Phillips steps in because Scott is totally trying to he's trying to dodge the core legal question. They ask him point blank, do undocumented immigrants have due process rights under the Constitution. And this grown man, this highly paid GOP commentator, literally says, "I'm unsure of what that means.
" Wow. Just wild. You're unsure of what the 14th Amendment means.
You're unsure of what persons means. Thank goodness they rolled the tape of Supreme Court justices explaining basic constitutional law. The 14th Amendment doesn't say citizens.
It says persons. Every single person on US soil has due process rights. That's the whole point of America, right?
But Scott is sitting there acting completely clueless because admitting the truth means admitting that Donald Trump's plans are totally illegal. It's a masterclass in feigned ignorance. Let me roll the final part of this tape.
Do you think that that is a fair thing to say at this moment? I do. I do think the media is pulling another, you know, dictator for a day hoax right now because it's clear when Trump said, "I don't know.
" What he meant was what he finished his sentence saying, which is, "I don't know where the Supreme Court is going to come down on whether deporting these illegal migrants is constitutional or not. " It's very obvious. Forget every headline.
You just called it a hoax, so let's just play what Trump said in response to Kristen Walker. Your Secretary of State says everyone who's here, citizens and non-citizens, deserve due process. Do you agree, Mr President?
I don't know. I'm not I'm not a lawyer. I don't know.
Well, the fifth amendment says I don't know. It seems it seems it might say that, but if you're talking about that, then we'd have to have a million or two million or three million trials. So, can I respond to that?
Yeah. Um, so what does it mean for an illegal immigrant to have due process? We would all agree that they do not have the same level of due process that we do.
For example, we are entitled to a jury trial and they are entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge. Do you know who the immigration judges work for? They work for the executive branch.
They work for I think that Donald Trump. Well, you're actually making a great You're making a great due process that they get. But Donald Trump doesn't even want to give him even that due process.
I mean, I think that that's part of the problem. I'm not sure the level to which they are entitled. She didn't ask about what level of due process.
A very basic. No, I mean the reason I'm I'm jumping in here is because she did not ask him what do should they have a jury trial? Should they not have a jury trial?
She just said the whatever process they are entitled to. If they're immigrants and they're in an immigration proceeding, then yeah, you're absolutely right. It's a different type of proceeding.
It's actually more of an administrative proceeding. It's a much lower standard as well. Still, even still, they are trying to circumvent that minimal amount of due process.
And the question is, let me give you example. I'll I'll give you an example. In the example of Kilar Orego Garcia, I believe he already got his due process.
He had a deportation order. So for Trump to be asked, does that man deserve more due process? I think the answer is absolutely not.
I don't want another dime of my taxpayer dollars to go to he was supposed to be sent to us. Let's had a deportation. Let's put Kilargo Garcia to the side.
I'm just using him as an example legitimately say does not need any more due process. It's not Trump's decision to decide that. I think that's the end of the story is that it's not Trump who decides whether when the due process ends.
It's it's a process for a reason. Guys, look at how Scott Jennings finishes his argument here. He tries to argue that because immigration judges work under the executive branch, Donald Trump basically owns them and gets to dictate whatever level of due process he feels like giving.
It is a completely authoritarian way to look at our system of governance and it's deeply dangerous. Let's think outside the box for a second here because this is the normalization of executive overreach. When Scott Jennings argues that the president can unilaterally decide when due process ends, he's echoing arguments we heard during the waterboarding debates under Bush or the weaponization of the Justice Department.
It's this idea that if the executive branch labels something a crisis or an invasion, the law just magically stops applying. But as Charles Blow brilliantly pointed out by citing the Supreme Court history, the 14th Amendment doesn't say citizens have these rights. It says persons.
The founders chose that word very carefully. If you allow a president to decide that one group of persons doesn't get constitutional protections because they're undocumented, what stops a future administration from saying you don't get them because you're a political dissident or because you're protesting? Once you break the barrier of universal due process, the whole house of cards falls apart.
We saw this exact same kind of rhetoric back in the 1950s during the Red Scare, where the government tried to bypass traditional legal processes under the guise of national security. Every single time America has panicked and decided that the Constitution was too slow or too inconvenient to protect a marginalized group, history has looked back on it with deep shame. Scott Jennings wants us to repeat those exact same mistakes because it plays well to a specific base that wants fast, punitive actions instead of actual structured legal solutions.
The reality is that our immigration system is broken. Everyone agrees on that. It needs funding.
It needs more judges and it needs comprehensive reform. But trying to fix a broken system by breaking the foundational document of our entire country is completely insane. Charles Blow absolutely did the Lord's work here by holding Scott's feet to the fire and showing the world that these pundits don't actually have a constitutional philosophy.
They just have a political agenda and they will bend or break whatever principles they need to in order to protect Donald Trump. But hey, I want to hear from you guys. What did you think about Charles Blow pulling out Scott's old articles?
Let me know in the comments below. Make sure to hit that like button and subscribe.
