Monday, on CNN’s “NewsNight,” CNN political contributor Scott Jennings reacted to claims President Donald Trump’s administration was somehow usurping the U.S. Constitution with its policy approach.
Jennings argued that the cause of the so-called “constitutional crisis” was not Trump but the federal judges trying to stop Trump.
He called it a continuation of “lawfare against Trump.”
“Let me read the tweet just so people understand,” host Abby Phillip said. “He wrote this on Sunday. If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. ‘If a judge tried to command the attorney general on how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.’ The word legitimate is doing a lot of work here, but we do know that judges do get to say whether the executive is complying with the law or not. That’s been the case for decades, hundreds of years.”
“I think there’s a difference between saying whether you’re complying with the law and then you have these individual district court judges setting effectively broad federal policy that is specifically reserved for the president of the United States,” Jennings replied. “I think we do have a constitutional crisis and it’s being caused by these judges. They’re not here to tell us how to spend the money. They’re not here to set broad federal policy. That is the president’s job as elected by the people. These judges are supposed to be settling discreet, specific matters, not policy setting. I think Vance is right. I think Trump has a point. And these judges want nothing more to continue the lawfare against Trump.”
(h/t RCP Video)
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