this is democracy watch Mark all eyes are on the courts right now as we continue to engage in a raft of litigation against the Trump Administration and we're paying particularly close attention to the prospect of what happens if Trump and His White House refuse to comply with a court order and of course that would usher in something of a constitutional crisis so that's why all eyes are on the court we're now in a situation where where we may very well see exactly that playing out so can you explain what happened with the latest instance in
court where there was an order to resume funding for usaid and yet we're now seeing push back from the administration yeah so you are exactly right and everyone needs to pay attention to this okay we have been inching like literally step by step towards the Trump Administration simply saying they're not going to follow court orders now I want to be clear they had not gotten to this point they have been essentially saying we are complying with your court Ord but they're saying it in a way that is disingenuous it's basically a game of cat and
mouse they are they are pretending as if they are complying with the orders as if they are when in fact they're not and you are right the magic line is when they start to say you know what we heard your order we're just not going to comply with it so that is where we go from like approaching a constitutional crisis to a full-blown constitutional crisis and we are now inching towards that because in a case as you point out in the district of Columbia uh brought by public citizen against uh the Department of State over
the suspension of usaid Aid um a judge issued a very very specific order that enjoined in other words blocked the suspension of appropriated foreign assistance programs and enjoying the issuance of termination suspensions or stock stop work orders in connection with those grants uh and ordered specifically that um Marco Rubio and the other defendants in that case uh quote take all necessary steps to effectuate the order so on its face this was very very clear which is you have to stop you know what you're doing you have to reinstate the these grants and you have to
take every all the appropriate steps necessary to effectuate that order well it turns out that when the Department of State was required to submit their uh their report back to the court that they were complying with the order they basically said no we're actually still suspending a we're we're not we're not we actually have not restored it and we are still suspending it and we are not doing the things that uh that we were told to do now they are still saying that they are complying they are still saying they read the order differently but
here's the big deal here the plaintiffs are moving for contempt and we have not seen that before they are saying your honor this is now in bad faith this is no longer you know a good faith or or even an arguably goodfaith disagreement about what your what the order said this is a this is this was done willfully in violation of your court order and you your honor need to hold them in contempt and that is definitely one big step closer to this final line that we have all feared if the judge does opt to
hold the Trump Administration in contempt is that a de facto acknowledgement that in fact that in fact we are seeing witnessing in real time the Trump administ ation not complying with court orders and and thereby kind of validating this idea that we're in a constitutional crisis yeah that would be a finding that the that they had def fight a court order I mean that would be the the contempt is the remedy when a party violates a court order now at that point the Trump Administration would have two choices which is why I'm not saying we've
taken the final step but you can see we are you can see we are very very close if that happens because the Trump Administration has two choices at that point it can apologize which I know that sounds bizarre Brian but like that's actually what usually happens if you are found in contempt or if you're even in the stage they're like look your honor we apologize I I did not understand it the way you did but I'm going to take the punishment because I get it I you know we violated your court order but they back
away from the abyss the other alternative is perhaps a little more trump it yeah which is that they just speed through it and say no you're WR wrong and then we have then crossed that Rubicon right then we have like crossed it where they're like saying we don't agree with your Honor's orders is is there something to be said for for what the Trump Administration is trying to do by virtue of kind of normalizing this behavior and getting closer and closer and then taking a step back and then the next time they go a little
bit closer and take a step back so that it doesn't feel so dire to those of us on the outside who are who are trained particularly closely on the prospect of of falling over that Cliff yeah look I I I am very uh focused on it and I have been arguing you know every day and writing on Democracy doet every day about not shifting this overt in window right like not normalizing this because this is dangerous stuff guys if we you know if people out there are start to normalize that people can you know you
know Wink in a nod violate court orders and then stop the Winking and then stop the nodding right like like none of this is okay I mean not even where we are is okay I mean these lawyers should be like literally we talk a lot about bowing and scraping they should be bowing and scraping to this judge apologizing profusely and assuring the court that this will never happen again and that Marco Rubio has insisted this will never happen again and that he has appointed an internal independent Watchdog to make sure this is not happen again
right I mean that is the normal that you would see you would see people fired in like the Biden Administration or you know the Bush Administration or the Obama Administration people would be fired at this point so I am worried that we are seeing that normalization Brian and and you know it's just critically important that we not let that happen well first of all you brought up democracy docket you have been beating this issue like a drum highly recommend for anybody watching right now if you are not yet signed up for democracy docket please sign
up it is an inv valuable resource that I use on a daily basis it's also worth it for us to support good Fearless independent jism and that is exactly what Mark is doing with that outlet so I'll put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video Mark people are going to look at this and say look this is just some small case regarding usaid funding that was already allocated this isn't some big um this isn't some like big it doesn't feel like some big constitutional crisis case and
so what do you say to those folks given the fact that Trump may very well be focusing on something that does feel rather insignificant usaid funding in order to set this precedent that he is going to establish by virtue of you know not not following court orders you know Brian just today Donald Trump referred to himself as a king yeah okay like on in a in a post on social media um on on February 15th a few days ago he posted he who saves his country does not violate the law which is a quote from
a dictator Napoleon so you know this is not a small matter I mean this is not a small issue this is the leading edge of a trend that we are seeing from someone who told us before he was elected he wanted to be a dictator he told us before he was elected don't worry Christians you won't have to worry about voting in the future he told us before he was elected and has joked ever since about not being bound to only serve two terms running again and now he is posting about being a king about
uh uh uh about uh being above the law so if people out there are not awake by this if they are not mobilized by this then frankly they are not paying attention to what is happening here Donald Trump wants to be a dictator he wants to be an authoritarian it is why right now he is selling out the Ukrainian people to make nice with Vladimir Putin because he he aspires to be someone like a Vladimir Putin and so when you see justice department lawyers resigning over and over again over being asked to do illegal things
or unethical things and you see uh something like this where the remaining lawyers in Department of Justice are filing uh papers that are potentially subject to contempt we are very close to that big constitutional crisis and it is deadly serious well building on that and and that was perfectly put for most of the people who are watching this right now they are keyed in they do recognize the stakes of the moment that we're in right now and so what would you say to those people who do understand the gravity of this moment um in terms
of of what the rest of us is there anything that the rest of us can do moving forward that that would be that would be helpful you know in terms of this broader movement because I know that there is a general sense of of helplessness at watching this stuff unfold before our eyes yeah look the other side wants you to feel helpless the other side wants you to believe that it's a fate a comply there is nothing you can do that they that Donald Trump is all powerful that Elon Musk is all powerful and literally
you are powerless when you feel powerless you are giving in to Donald Trump so here's what I want everyone to do okay I want everyone right now to say to themselves that they have the power to stop the authoritarianism that we see and I want them not only to say it I want them to believe it and then I want them to go to two friends and tell them the what the stakes are and that they need to spread the word about what is happening because here's the thing not all of us are you Brian
you command a you know millions of people see your videos every day but each and every one of you watching this you have a Town Square that you can step out into right now and you can call this out for what it is and if we all do that if we all talk to our friends our families our neighbors our customers our clients if we all post on our own social media that may be much smaller than yours if we all post on our YouTube channels which is much smaller than Brian's if we all go
to our Facebook groups and our knitting clubs and our bridge clubs and our book clubs and we talk about this and not allow it to be normalized you know what the the wannabe dictator will back away the wannabe dictator will back down and and democracy Will Survive but if we all feel powerless we all feel helpless and we all just turn off turn it all out and tune it all out because we're tired then that's when the other side wins so here's the thing I'm sorry you're tired I'm tired too Brian's tired there's no one
harder working than this guy I mean look how many videos he posts um but we're all tired okay but now's the time that you can't be tired Now's the Time that you got to you got to step up and you got to spread the word of what we need to do to protect democracy and and that was perfectly put I would just add that look Trump has the advantage of the biggest megaphone in the world he has the advantage of a republican Congress and a republican court all of whom have contracted every ounce of of
their autonomy over to him and the executive branch he has the advantage of Elon musk's unlimited funding but popular pressure is more powerful than all of that and if we show popular pressure none of those things will matter not all of those things will will will bend in the face of of up of an uprising of popular support so just something to keep in mind that all the money in the world all the power in the world and the biggest megaphone in the world do not hold a candle to the fact that that that if
we're able to wield public pressure on our side there's nothing that can overcome that you know and Brian I want to tie this to to actually the very last episode that you and I did together which I hope everyone goes back and watches because I got such an outpouring of support this was about how Elon Musk had targeted me on social media and said that I had suffered uh generational trauma and I wrote a piece on Democracy docket about it it's free on the website now we've we've literally taken pay wall out so that everybody
can see it because there's been such an outpouring of support and in it you know I talk about the fact that that Donald Trump May command the federal government and and uh and Elon Musk may be able to you know be the most the richest person the most powerful person in the world but I point out that you know my family is in this country that came from nothing because we believed in American democracy and and know that if we stand up we can fight back and I know that's true about you and your family
as well and I ended it by telling them this my Hebrew name is elhanan which is uh one of the members of David's Army who slayed Goliath and if with a young boy with a slingshot can take down a a giant certainly all of us together all of us putting pressure all of us speaking out we can certainly stand up to a tinpot dictator like Donald Trump and his megalomaniac narcissistic backer like Elon Musk perfectly put that is the uh the the shot of energy in the ass that everybody needed right now so uh of
course again for folks who are watching right now to support the very clearly invaluable work that Mark and his team are doing please sign up for democracy doit I'll put the link right here on this screen and also in the post description of this video I'm Brian tell Cohen I'm Mark Elias this is democracy watch [Music]
