executive branch
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Search complete. 217 mentions across 54 episodes found for "executive branch".
Sep 10, 2026
Jonathan SwanGUEST
Um, and that's basically where we're at.
Jon StewartHOST
And it's so interesting because term one was considered such an aberration from traditional American presidencies that the idea that term two is almost unrecognizable even to term one, which at the time we thought, "My God This is utterly pushing the bounds of, uh, executive power and, uh, of the way that, uh, you know, the executive functions as opposed to congressional oversight.
Jon StewartHOST
We thought that was an aberration.
Jonathan SwanGUEST
I mean, term one looks like the Eisenhower administration-
Andrew BrancaHOST
She was blocking a rule that hadn't even yet been finalized.
Andrew BrancaHOST
Indeed, she tried to hold the executive branch in contempt for even daring to finalize the rule in the first place.
Andrew BrancaHOST
Excuse me, even today.
Andrew BrancaHOST
Her latest injunction prohibits the Postal Service from even training to enforce the final rule, much less actual enforcement.
Andrew BrancaHOST
Now, Talwani's main argument in issuing her injunction is that The Constitution gives the power to control elections to the states by default and to Congress to the extent that Congress wants to be involved, but not to the executive branch, not to the president.
Andrew BrancaHOST
So she claims Trump's actions regarding mail-in ballots are ultra viris, unlawful on their face, beyond the president's lawful authority.
Andrew BrancaHOST
But Trump has a very simple answer to that, and that is that this postal rule does nothing to change how states run elections, nor does it have any impact on whom states qualify or disqualify as voters.
5 MINS LATER
Andrew BrancaHOST
And I thought it wouldn't be very much fun for all of us to sit and read that for 40 pages, an hour, hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes.
Terry MoeGUEST
And that began in the 1970s.
Lilly GorenHOST
I wanted to ask you the next question because part of the, the sort of novel theory in the book is to some degree, this discussion of the symmetrical sort of response by presidents through much of the 20th century with regard to leading the administrative state and, and sort of accruing a certain amount of power to the executive branch and to the presidency that wasn't necessarily there before.
Lilly GorenHOST
in the previous hundred years or the previous century in the same way.
Lilly GorenHOST
But then as you and William note that there, there starts to be a move from symmetry to asymmetry with regard to presidents in office that was based on their partisan affiliation.
Terry MoeGUEST
And then in the 70s, they turn around and they say, what we really need in this country is a presidency of extraordinary power.
Terry MoeGUEST
OK, complete U-turn.
Terry MoeGUEST
Why? Because through a presidency of extraordinary power, they felt they would have a president who could wage war on the administrative state by himself, unilaterally, top down within the executive branch.
Terry MoeGUEST
They didn't need Congress.
Terry MoeGUEST
And that began in the 1970s.
Lilly J. GorenHOST
I wanted to ask you the next question because part of the, the sort of novel theory in the book is to some degree, this discussion of the symmetrical sort of response by presidents through much of the 20th century with regard to leading the administrative state and, and sort of accruing a certain amount of power to the executive branch and to the presidency that wasn't necessarily there before.
Lilly J. GorenHOST
in the previous hundred years or the previous century in the same way.
Lilly J. GorenHOST
But then as you and William note that there, there starts to be a move from symmetry to asymmetry with regard to presidents in office that was based on their partisan affiliation.
Terry MoeGUEST
And then in the 70s, they turn around and they say, what we really need in this country is a presidency of extraordinary power.
Terry MoeGUEST
OK, complete U-turn.
Terry MoeGUEST
Why? Because through a presidency of extraordinary power, they felt they would have a president who could wage war on the administrative state by himself, unilaterally, top down within the executive branch.
Terry MoeGUEST
They didn't need Congress.
Terry MoeGUEST
And that began in the 1970s.
Lily GornHOST
I wanted to ask you the next question because part of the, the sort of novel theory in the book is to some degree, this discussion of the symmetrical sort of response by presidents through much of the 20th century with regard to leading the administrative state and, and sort of accruing a certain amount of power to the executive branch and to the presidency that wasn't necessarily there before.
Lily GornHOST
in the previous hundred years or the previous century in the same way.
Lily GornHOST
But then as you and William note that there, there starts to be a move from symmetry to asymmetry with regard to presidents in office that was based on their partisan affiliation.
Terry MoeGUEST
And then in the 70s, they turn around and they say, what we really need in this country is a presidency of extraordinary power.
Terry MoeGUEST
OK, complete U-turn.
Terry MoeGUEST
Why? Because through a presidency of extraordinary power, they felt they would have a president who could wage war on the administrative state by himself, unilaterally, top down within the executive branch.
Terry MoeGUEST
They didn't need Congress.
Terry MoeGUEST
And that began in the 1970s.
Lilly J. GorenHOST
I wanted to ask you the next question because part of the, the sort of novel theory in the book is to some degree, this discussion of the symmetrical sort of response by presidents through much of the 20th century with regard to leading the administrative state and, and sort of accruing a certain amount of power to the executive branch and to the presidency that wasn't necessarily there before.
Lilly J. GorenHOST
in the previous hundred years or the previous century in the same way.
Lilly J. GorenHOST
But then as you and William note that there, there starts to be a move from symmetry to asymmetry with regard to presidents in office that was based on their partisan affiliation.
Terry MoeGUEST
And then in the 70s, they turn around and they say, what we really need in this country is a presidency of extraordinary power.
Terry MoeGUEST
OK, complete U-turn.
Terry MoeGUEST
Why? Because through a presidency of extraordinary power, they felt they would have a president who could wage war on the administrative state by himself, unilaterally, top down within the executive branch.
Terry MoeGUEST
They didn't need Congress.
Jeffrey RosenHOST
He fires off this letter saying that liberating slaves will alarm our Southern friends.
Jeffrey RosenHOST
He's focused on his own executive power and the impossibility of a general acting unilaterally.
Jeffrey RosenHOST
And he asked, can it be pretended that the government of the United States has the power, even the president has the power, to make permanent rules of property by proclamation? He's arguing against his own power to issue the proclamation, and you say it's just remarkable because this letter is September 22nd, 1861, and exactly your letter, September 22nd, 1862, he issues the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
Jeffrey RosenHOST
How was Lincoln converted from having constitutional scruples to deciding that his executive power in war was broad enough?
Damon RootGUEST
Yeah, that one-year date is one of those things in doing the research when I kind of had to do a double-take to make sure I had that right, that on September 22nd of 1861, he's responding to a letter from one of his friends and allies who had said, why did you overturn this measure? This is wonderful.
Damon RootGUEST
And Lincoln said it would be sort of the death of government.
Jeffrey RosenHOST
That is, if they're masters of that category, the enslaved people.
Jeffrey RosenHOST
are free, but still Lincoln is cagey and Horace Greeley, who is criticizing Lincoln for being tepid on anti-slavery, publishes an article, and it's then that Lincoln makes his famous statement, if I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that.
Clodagh HarringtonGUEST
But Democrats have been too passive and docile, apart from a few kind of voices, you know, the kind of loud ones like Alexander Ocasio-Cortez and her contemporaries.
Clodagh HarringtonGUEST
But generally speaking, it's been executive power central and congressional power minimal.
Clodagh HarringtonGUEST
And the administration has been allowed to do almost what it wants, as has his family, hence the billions.
Mick CliffordHOST
Yeah, and I suppose a lot of people would put down that Dock Isles sort of approach from Congress and the Republican side of it to the reality that they're scared of his connection to their base.
speaker_4NARRATOR
President of the United States is in charge of which branch of government?
speaker_6NARRATOR
Executive Branch
speaker_4NARRATOR
What part of the federal government writes laws?
speaker_5NARRATOR
US Congress.
speaker_5NARRATOR
The President of the United States.
speaker_5NARRATOR
Who appoints federal judges? The President of the United States.
speaker_4NARRATOR
The Executive Branch has many parts.
speaker_4NARRATOR
Name
Alicia MenendezHOST
Attorney General Todd Blanch is among them.
Alicia MenendezHOST
His appearance at what is being called Trumpapalooza is testing the limits of the Hatch Act, the law that prohibits federal executive branch employees from participating in partisan political events.
Alicia MenendezHOST
Now, this wouldn't be the first time Blanche has waded in political waters.
Alicia MenendezHOST
Just last month, he spoke at a campaign event for New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman.
8 MINS LATER
Kevin FryCORRESPONDENT
Yeah, Alicia, and also notable in timing here is this comes as we saw the Supreme Court, basically the president has appealed to the Supreme Court to rule in on this, asking them to allow these rules to go forward after a federal judge up in Massachusetts just on Friday extended the block on the implementation of these new restrictions on mail-in balloting.
Kevin FryCORRESPONDENT
Now, part of the argument from these lawmakers, about 250 Democrats on Capitol Hill, plus those 15 current and former Republican lawmakers, saying essentially that, look, Based on the Constitution, and they cite the Constitutional Convention back in the 1700s, they cite the Federalist Papers, part of the arrangement in the Constitution is that the states get to pick the time and place of elections with Congress overseeing that process with basically veto power.
Kevin FryCORRESPONDENT
But at no point does the executive branch have any role to play here.
Kevin FryCORRESPONDENT
Part of their argument in this amicus brief that we obtained first says that unlawfully asserping for the executive branch the authority over federal elections that the framers granted exclusively to the states and to Congress.
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