Is Trump's Iran War Legal? (w/ Ryan Goodman)

Summary

Bulwark Takes — “Is Trump's Iran War Legal?” (w/ Ryan Goodman)

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Host: Bill Kristol
Guest: Ryan Goodman (NYU Law Professor; Co-editor, Just Security)
Date: June 14, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode digs into pressing rule-of-law concerns under Trump’s second administration, focusing on the legality of recent U.S. military actions, politicization of intelligence and justice agencies, and major Supreme Court cases looming. Bill Kristol and Ryan Goodman discuss the symbolism of removing Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center, analyze controversial Trump nominees (DNI & AG), address surveillance powers and intelligence abuses, dissect U.S. military conduct abroad, and explore seismic implications of Supreme Court rulings for American democracy.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Kennedy Center Case: Symbolism & Legal Standing

• Symbolic Value: Removing Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center was “important… both symbolic value as well as just institutional value for the country.”
  — Ryan Goodman (02:11)

• Standing & Irregular Procedures: Kristol explains Rep. Joyce Beatty’s key role in the lawsuit, noting the procedural irregularities that gave her standing to sue, illustrating that legal change often depends on individuals willing to take risks.
  — Kristol & Goodman (03:14–05:32)

  Quote:

  “You need somebody who has a particular kind of injury that the court will recognize so that they can bring the case. Without her, you don't even have a case.”
  — Ryan Goodman (04:53)

2. National Security Positions: Intelligence Community in Turmoil

• Weaponizing the DNI: Trump’s use of loyalists in national security roles signals a move to politicize intelligence, with dangerous ramifications.
  — Goodman: “Trump recognizes that it [DNI] can be weaponized. That’s why he’d want someone like Pulte in there, a complete hatchet man who will use and abuse the office.” (06:32)

• Jay Clayton as DNI: Democrats rushed to support Clayton simply because he wasn’t Pulte, missing that Clayton lacks requisite expertise and has shown worrying public partisanship.

  Quote:

  “He's a very unusual person with a very unusual background that doesn't seem to qualify for the job...The Director of National Intelligence is supposed to be a truth teller to the President.”
  — Ryan Goodman (09:35–12:36)

  • Concerns: Clayton’s public statements supporting dubious election fraud claims and a “slush fund” for Trump signal he’s “auditioning for the president” rather than acting in public interest.
  • Danger of Loyalists: Parallels are drawn to Putin’s intelligence failures in Ukraine — when leaders fill intelligence agencies with loyalists who won’t tell them hard truths.

3. Election Integrity, Foreign Interference & Section 702

• Election Interference Worries:
  • The risk that Trump officials, through the DNI, will invoke or manufacture foreign election interference as a pretext for domestic intervention (e.g., seizing ballots).
  • Highlighted by prior attempts to place intelligence officials at polling locations and Tulsi Gabbard’s (as DNI) active promotion of conspiracy theories (16:10–18:35).
• Section 702 Surveillance:
  • Section 702 of FISA is essential for U.S. intelligence (“if 702 were to go away, lives would be lost”), but its reauthorization is being jeopardized by political maneuvering with nominations.
  • Ongoing debate: balancing civil liberties (incidental collection of U.S. citizen data) versus security needs.
    — Goodman: “If 702 went away, it would be a very different world for U.S. national security… But there are significant civil liberties concerns.” (19:35–24:29)
  • Statutory loopholes ("grandfather clause") mean 702 may continue for a year even if Congress lets it sunset.

4. Justice Department: The Blanche Nomination

• Todd Blanche for AG:
  • Blanche's prior Senate confirmation as Deputy AG doesn't excuse his subsequent “corrupt” and “repulsive” actions, including politicized prosecutions and support for the Trump “slush fund.”
  • Firing career officials for ideological reasons erodes DOJ’s integrity (“much worse than Nixon”) (25:55–29:01).
  • Goodman: “He has basically disqualified himself for the job in the ways in which he's been… corrupt.” (25:55)

5. Department of Defense: Rule of Law Breakdown

• Assassinations & Extrajudicial Killings:

  • Recent U.S. military killing of Venezuelan gang leader Nina Guerrero, with public boasting by the president, is decried as “murder” and unprecedented.
    Quote:

  “We don't engage in extrajudicial killings of alleged criminals… It's murder. And I think it’s important to underscore… this is announced by the President and Secretary of Defense… I don’t know any other way around it than that it’s cold blooded murder.”
  — Ryan Goodman (29:52–32:07)

  • Raises the specter: If the administration can claim foreign gangs are “armies,” what's to stop similar actions inside the U.S.?

• Alien Enemies Act:

  • The Justice Dept’s contradictory claims: asserting in court that certain gangs are “foreign armies” while simultaneously collaborating with those very governments in operations.
  • Conservative federal courts have so far rejected the administration’s arguments for using the Alien Enemies Act for mass deportations; a key case is pending at the Supreme Court.
    — "The invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was bogus...multiple ways in which the Supreme Court can come out against the Trump administration on this." (36:38–40:14)

6. Supreme Court Watch: Separation of Powers & the Administrative State

• Upcoming Decisions:

  1. Birthright Citizenship: Likely to go against Trump, per Goodman.
  2. Mail-in Voting & Voting Rights: Kristol decries recent Supreme Court tolerance of discriminatory maps as a “stain” on its legacy.
  3. Unitary Executive Theory: Looming decision could expand presidential powers to fire any civil servant at will, endangering the Civil Service system and leading to a destabilized “spoils” regime in federal government.

  Quote:

  "I completely agree. It's not far-fetched at all… It really would be transformative. And the worst thing about it as well...is then what on earth can Congress do?"
  — Ryan Goodman (45:22)

• Long-Term Implications:

  • The prospect that future 'rule of law' administrations—Democratic or Republican—would struggle to rebuild institutions if “unitary executive” doctrines are maximized.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Political Weaponization of Intelligence:

  “You don't want these kind of political loyalists and the like in those positions… that's what happens with Putin.”
  — Goodman (12:36)

• On Killing of Venezuelan Gang Leader:

  “It’s murder. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a person in Venezuela...I don’t see any way around this.”
  — Goodman (32:07)

• On Section 702 Surveillance:

  “70% of the information that comes to the Presidential Daily Brief comes from 702.”
  — Goodman (19:35)

• On Civil Service at Risk:

  “Why doesn't that just destroy all of our civil service and the Pendleton Act and 150 years of trying to insulate…from pure political and personal control of the president?”
  — Kristol (44:23)

• On Rule of Law & Civil Service Protections:

  “The idea that you’re going to just gut this whole thing…was a perfectly reasonable, and very much in the spirit of the founding fathers…to think, okay, how do we balance these things?”
  — Kristol (47:34)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Kennedy Center / Joyce Beatty Standing: 01:02–05:32
• DNI Nominations (Pulte/Clayton); National Security Manipulation: 06:13–13:50
• Election Interference Risks, 702 Discussion: 14:50–24:29
• DOJ: Todd Blanche Nomination: 24:29–29:01
• Defense Department Illegality (Venezuela, Drug Boats): 29:01–36:38
• Alien Enemies Act, Immigration Litigation: 36:18–40:14
• Supreme Court: Major Cases Pending, Unitary Executive: 41:16–49:55

---

Concluding Thoughts

In a charged, timely conversation, Kristol and Goodman lay bare how rapidly the rule of law and institutional checks can be undermined—not only by overt abuses of power but by rushed, uncritical acceptance of nominees and legal doctrines that fundamentally reshape American government. The episode is a sobering analysis, blending legal expertise with deep concern for the nation’s democratic fabric.

---

For listeners seeking a roadmap to the most urgent legal and institutional battles unfolding under Trump’s second term—and what’s at stake as the Supreme Court wraps its term—this episode is an indispensable listen.

Transcript

[Bluff]

What's going on everyone? It's bluff here. And you know what's more American than America's 250th birthday? Supporting American owned companies like Spinquest, America's number one social casino with over a thousand games like live dealer blackjack and craps. They're offering new users a 30 coin package for just $10. Go to spinquest.com and sign up. Today

[Spinquest Announcer]

Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

[Blue Lizard Sunscreen / Lady Luck]

Be fearless in the sun with Blue Lizard Australian Sunscreen. Whether you're diving into ocean waves or simply chasing your kids around the backyard, Blue Lizard has you covered so you can enjoy every moment worry free. Designed for your whole family and free from fragrances, parabens and phthalates, Blue Lizard is your go to mineral sunscreen trusted by dermatologists, pediatricians and parents. Shop now on Amazon.com and be free. Earless in the sun with Blue Lizard Australian Sunscreen.

[Bill Kristol]

Hi, Bill Kristol here. Welcome to Bull Work on Sunday. Very pleased to be joined this morning by Ryan Goodman, who's been on several times, a law professor at nyu, co editor, I think at the title of the just very important, really indispensable, just security website. Brian's in New York. So congratulations on the Knicks last night.

[Ryan Goodman]

Yeah, thank you so much.

[Bill Kristol]

Did you have a lot of hubbub in your neighborhood?

[Ryan Goodman]

Yeah, we did. And huge hubbub in other, in other neighborhoods of New York as well. But I take the victory for the, you know, for the whole country, not just the state.

[Bill Kristol]

Oh, that's, that's, that's generous of you. But still, it's a New York, it's a New York thing kind of.

[Ryan Goodman]

No, I think, yeah, it was just a great feeling.

[Bill Kristol]

It was, I mean, watching the clips this morning also just, you know, all the celebrations all around the city is really something actually. And we had our midi celebrations here in D.C. as Trump's name came down from the Kennedy Center. But you know, the Trump, they had to put up the tarp to conceal it from the emergency as much as they could. That was kind of pathetic, I thought. But any thoughts on that legal case? An interesting victory for the plaintiffs against the Trump Justice Department.

[Ryan Goodman]

Yeah, I thought it was an important victory in the sense that this has both important symbolic value as well as just institutional value for the country. And obviously, you know, dictators and others like them try to put their names and everything and buildings like that. And so I think just the visualization of it coming down was important. And you know, when we talk about like non compliance with court orders and things like that, this is not on the grand scheme of things, but that, that's significant. But at the same time, the TARP is what delayed them in a sense of like having to do all the scaffolding for the tarp. And then they told the court that the reason that there was all these delays is because of thunderstorms. It's just embarrassing. I mean, that's where I'd put it as well, like you said, as well. It's just pathetic that they had the TARP and that they did that as part of the process. And it made even the visualization of the one photojournalist who caught them taking down Trump's name behind the TARP even more powerful in a sense.

[Bill Kristol]

So, yeah, no, I think it might

[Ryan Goodman]

backfires in a way.

[Bill Kristol]

Might have backfired. Right. I was struck. I was talking with Nathaniel Zelensky, you know, the young lawyer who was the lead counsel on the case. And I mean, he made the point to me and I could have report. He thought it was important to sort of repeat. I'm going to repeat it, that I think it's correct that Representative Beatty, who brought the case was an. Is an exit, was, I guess, an ex officio member of the board, maybe she still is, and tried to object to this decision. And they shut her mic down on the zoom call and then she had to go to the White House alone. They wouldn't let her bring a staffer in this meeting with 39 Trump loyalists and object there. So she would have standing to complain that these procedures were irregular. Otherwise it might have been a little hard for anyone to have standing in this, I suppose. Right. I mean, and so she really deserves a lot of credit. I mean, I don't think she would say this publicly, but there were others who are ex officio members of the war, Democratic members of Congress as well as Republicans who didn't want to quite get involved. There were others who thought, you know, come on, they're going to target you. You're going to get, you know, death threats and everything. What would this. They're more important things to fight. I wouldn't say all of her colleagues were sort of thought this was, you know, encouraged her to do this. So I think they ultimately were behind her, of course. And, you know, she's. And she, she did it. I really give her a lot of credit and I give the lawyers credit. I mean, it's these things, you know, you read the headlines. People like me or not like you, but people who are lawyers. It's like court case one, you know, resolved, you know, in this instance or that instance. But of course, one forgets that in each case there has to be a plaintiff and an attorney and backup people who do the work to get it to the court. Right.

[Ryan Goodman]

I mean, yeah. And then just to underscore the one, one part of what you said there, which is so folks understand there could be a legal wrong, it could be completely legally inappropriate and invalid to do something like try to shut down the Kennedy center or change the name. And then as you said, you need somebody with, you need somebody who has a particular kind of injury that the court will recognize so that they can bring the case. And as you said, I would have a hard time imagining who that individual is if it is not for an ex officio member like the congresswoman. So without her, you don't even have a case is part of the issue here. Yep, exactly.

[Bill Kristol]

So hats off to Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio. And that was good. Okay, let's talk about what's going on. And we're on the national security side of the rule of law, so to speak, which is kind of an important side. The security agencies are so important, obviously for the country and for our national security. But also it's the heart often of the attempt to impose or move towards autocracy. So what do we have? We have the Pulte and Clayton nominations for Director of National Intelligence. You know a lot about that. You worked at the Defense Department in the Attorney's office and worked a lot, I believe, with the intelligence community and something you studied, taught, I'm sure, over the, over the years. So.

[Ryan Goodman]

Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

What do you make of it all? First, he puts in Pulte as acting Director. And then last week, under pressure, I guess you'd say, nominates the Attorney General for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, as the next director. And they seem to have hearing scheduled already for him this week. So what's your general take on what happened?

[Ryan Goodman]

I guess the, my general take on what happened is that I'd say, I guess, two things. One, the office of Director of National Intelligence is a very important position. And Donald J. Trump recognizes that it can be weaponized. That's why he would want somebody like Poltay in there, somebody who's a complete hatchet man who will use and abuse the office. And there's just various ways in which that office can be abused, including suppression of domestic political dissent. And then second is, I think this is somewhat of an obvious Point, in a sense, which is just to do the thought experiment, imagine if Donald Trump never said he was going to appoint Polta and instead said he was going to nominate Jay Clayton. And that was our baseline, that was our starting position in thinking about this. Jay Clayton is very troublesome for the job, but we're in this strange political environment in which members of the Democratic side of the Hill jumped out within, I think, 60 minutes of the Clayton announcement of the nomination, saying, this is a wonderful candidate for the job, and if you scrutinize it, he is not. He is not. He's a very unusual person with a very unusual background that doesn't seem to qualify for the job. And I think that he's also been on a kind of a campaign of trying to please the president. And so I think that's what's just totally lost, in a sense, and in a large respect, I think that might well be lost in the way in which this nomination is barreling ahead, because people are so worried about Pulte. But I think we should reset those expectations in a certain sense of understanding what's going on here.

[Bill Kristol]

I think that's very helpful and very important. I mean, I was really shocked when, I guess both the ranking Democrats in both the House and the Senate on intelligence, and they, of course, have real concerns about the 702 program, which we should probably talk about for a second, for a minute. And, and therefore they, you know, I can understand how they thought, okay, you know, at least it's not faulty. But I don't know. Since when do you, Representative Himes and Senator Warner, when do you endorse candidates before you have the hearing? I mean, don't you want to hear what I mean? As you say, someone who, if you spent five minutes looking around, you'd see some of the things Clayton had done at sdny. And literally, I think that morning or the morning before, he had been on TV popping off about this totally fake LA mayor's, you know, alleged election fraud and saying, well, you've got to take that seriously, or something like that. It's like, I don't know, since one thing ODNI could be used for is to have fake foreign interference in the election and then decide as Tulsa Gabbard, I think, you know, started to do, decide. We have to get, you know, our people involved in supervising the ballots and God knows what. And again, I was disappointed that they fell for that. But there will be a hearing Wednesday and maybe people will sort of calm down a little bit and say, yeah, let's Have a real hearing and let's have. I think some of the Democratic members will press Clayton. What about Clayton's background most worries you?

[Ryan Goodman]

So the statutory requirement for being the head of the office is that the person has vast national security experience and he does not. Being U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, there is a cross section of issues that would be national security, security related, but it's not enormous. He's not been in the job for very long and based on nothing else, not partisan, no ideology even, and anything else. I just think in terms of what the country needs for that top job in the intelligence community is somebody who understands intelligence, who understands who to trust, who understands the difference between human intelligence and different versions of sources and methods and how to assess them without having to turn to other people to try to rely on their judgment. He doesn't have that. I mean, is he going to. How's he going to assess, you know, Iran's capabilities and the different information he's getting from different parts of the intelligence community in the United States? Leilan Foreign intelligence and all the rest of it? He's not equipped for that. So that, to me, is really challenging at one level. And then the second is, like you said, you know, just in terms of folks understanding what is the. What is the norm, and the norm being a justified norm. Some norms are assumed right, and they're not correct. But the norm is that a US Attorney would not be jumping on television and cable television to mouth off on things of the day. That's not the way in which the Justice Department runs normally in the last decades. They don't discuss their own cases. They don't discuss other U.S. attorneys cases. Why he's pontificating on the California election, which is 3,000 miles away, is wild. The fact that he would validate fraud claims by saying, oh, the California elections are also giving an opportunity for cheating is baloney. And seems like he's just auditioning for the president. He also went earlier on cable television and in his apparent audition for this job or for the president, endorsed the slush fund. I mean, that's even something that there's across the aisle. People have thought that the slush fund of the $1.8 billion was nuts and just a full level corruption. And he endorsed that. He said, oh, you know, it's deserved that the president would get the slush fund. And in answer to a question, he was pressed, isn't it different that we're talking about not just a plaintiff, but the president in terms of the question wasn't perfectly worded to him, but self dealing with respect to suing himself essentially as a unitary executive. And he said, no, I don't see the difference. It's just incredibly bad that he's even out there on the airwaves. And then what he's saying there is is really kind of MAGA right wing things that I have to believe he does not actually believe. Just he seems to be smart enough not to buy into that kind of stuff. So that worries me. For the very kind of job that's supposed to be a truth teller. That's the other piece of it. The Director of National Intelligence is supposed to be a truth teller to the President, is supposed to give the President unvarnished assessments of U.S. intelligence. And boy, you don't want somebody like that in a position of that trust. And to draw a bit of an extreme analogy, but when you have a head of state and an intelligence apparatus that doesn't want to tell the President the truth about matters, that's what happens with Putin. So the explanation for why Putin screwed up in Ukraine is because he just had an intelligence apparatus made up of loyalists that were afraid of telling him truths and instead we're just lap dogs for him. And that's why it's a major debacle for him. I just worry that you don't want these kind of political loyalists and the like in those positions so that it worries me to no end in terms of just pure US national security.

[Blue Lizard Sunscreen / Lady Luck]

Hey guys, Lady Luck here. Are you going on any road trips this summer? I know I'm going to be going on a bunch of road trips and being that I'm going to be Passenger Princess, I Love playing on Spinquest.com Spinquest has all of my favorite slot games. Live Blackjack, Live Craps. Head on over to Spinquest right now and get yourself a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks.

[Spinquest Announcer]

Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

[Norwegian Cruise Line Announcer]

Out here, if you're doing nothing, you're doing everything right though on a cruise with Norwegian, even if you're doing nothing, you're still basking in the warm sun, enjoying the peaceful ocean waves. You're breathing. Don't forget about breathing. Definitely need to be breathing. So you get to do nothing or everything, but you still need to be breathing. It's like really important experience.

[Blue Lizard Sunscreen / Lady Luck]

The difference with cruises to Alaska, the Caribbean and Europe. Norwegian Cruise Line it's different out here. Visit ncl.com, call your travel advisor or 1-888-NCL-CRUISE Norwegian Cruise Line Ships Registry the Bahamas and USA yeah, I think we

[Bill Kristol]

have a bit of a real time experience with this in Iran where it does seem like the intelligence. Who knows if Trump was interested even in getting real intelligence. It's a little complicated but. But it does seem that the int that was passed on, I guess through the top tiers of the administration to the public about the destruction of Iran's capabilities and so forth was not accurate. Now maybe they just got it wrong. I mean, that's of course and they were in good faith repeating things that they just happened not to understand about. You know, they didn't pick up through various technical means and stuff. But yeah, it's not like we haven't seen a case. It sounds like we haven't seen case studies in American history where bad intelligence has led to bad decisions. You know, so you'd be think you'd be especially careful with that. But maybe they don't care as much. I do think the election interference part maybe of all them freaks me out the most. I hope the.

[Ryan Goodman]

Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

Senators focus on that a little bit. Will he. Will he do what Hegseth hasn't done and say it's inappropriate for federal officials to show up at polling places and so forth? I don't think that isn't that in statute or at least or in something in regulation. And yeah, that doesn't, that's not just about. Maybe it's just about Defense Department, you know, uniform military. But presumably would apply to intelligent, you know, foreign. Intelligent officers. Intelligent officers supposed to be focused on, on, on what's happening abroad or what's coming for abroad, so to speak, as the. Is true of the intelligence community as opposed, let's say, to the FBI. Right. So I don't know.

[Ryan Goodman]

Yeah. Yeah. And it's. And it's been this long march for Tulsi Gabbit. She seems to been working this file for a while. And you know, it's just it was absolutely extraordinary that the officer that the Director of National Intelligence was in Atlanta, Georgia at Fulton county when the FBI did their search warrant, because why on earth is the head of the US National Intelligence that's looking outward for foreign threats in Atlanta with respect to the 2020 election? And then the Wall Street Journal had some good reporting that this is what she's been working on, these crackpot conspiracy theories. And to me, the great concern which you're identifying as well is that somebody with that platform starts to spin up the notion of foreign interference in US Elections. And it's completely bogus. People have to definitely suspend reality because they will. They're not wedded to any facts on this. Well, if you want to give the president of the United States the greatest authority that they might have to try to interfere in elections, imagine there were a real threat and the real threat was that China was interfering in US Elections through the manipulation of ballots and things like that. Well, then you might think, well, of course, isn't that a reason for national security purposes, the president to declare an emergency, seize ballots or something like that, voting rolls and the rest of it. And I don't have any faith in Jay Clayton not following through. In fact, I think that it would probably be a much more sophistic operation under him than it would be under Tulsi Gabbage. She seems to be sophomoric in the way in which she has carried out her role. So I think it's a real concern that people should have and as somebody really wise said to me at one point way back when, several months ago, there's no chance that Donald J. Trump's not going to take a run at the election in terms of trying to interfere with it. He's not going to just sit back in all likelihood. So the idea that he's put these kinds of people in place with Cash Patel running the FBI and obviously we can talk about Todd Blanchard, the doj, it's almost just aligning the very kinds of people that you would imagine would carry out that kind of thing.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. No, it's worrisome to say the least. We'll get to Blanche in a second. Very important, but just a word about the 702 program, section 702 of Foreign Intelligence, what was called Surveillance Act. Is that what it's called? Because that's been obviously that's up in the air pending and there's been a bit of a dispute about, about it among across the board, actually, I'd say in terms of, you know, you've seen it up close. Well, you worked at the Defense Department and I mean, what's your leaving aside if one could do that, the particular nominee. And maybe one can't really do it because obviously one's judgment about it hinges a bit on who's going to be administering it. But what's the general. You're not, I don't want to put words. You're not one who thinks the whole thing is a, a bad, you know, a bad, an intrusion necessarily an intrusion on civil liberties, a bad idea, some kind of scheme. The intelligence community is pulling you know, pulling off at the expense of the rest of us or whatever. Tell us about 702 a little bit.

[Ryan Goodman]

Yeah. So section 702 is a post 911 intelligence tool. And I think of it as many people who work in the national security space, I would say, and certainly I would think almost everybody in a certain sense that done national security inside the US government thinks of it as a vital US Intelligence tool. So vital that I do not think it's hyperbole whatsoever to say if 702 were to go away as a program, lives would be lost. There are just so many ways in which it has informed and it constantly informs on a daily basis US intelligence understandings of threats to the United States, threats to US persons abroad, terrorist threats in Europe and the rest of it. And we share that information with foreign partners. And when this came up for reauthorization during the Biden administration, the Biden administration did a very concerted effort of declassifying a bunch of information in order to show the public and for members of Congress to be able to talk about multiple successes along that entire line. And I think the number might be at some like 70% of the information that comes to the Presidential Daily brief, it comes from 702. So if 702 went away, it would be a very different world altogether for the US national security. And so that really does hang in the balance. And I understand why the ranking members of the House and the Senate side and the intelligence community would be very concerned about that being the issue so that they would want to like jump on the idea of the Clayton nomination for DNI is resolving all of this so that they can get back to the table of a negotiated compromise and reauthorization that would preserve the program, but with additional protection. So that's, that's really the thrust of it. 702 is outwardly directed. It only is supposed to be, specifically, it was supposed to be about like foreign nationals discussing matters that are of an intelligence threat to the United States outside the and being located outside the United States. There is a civil libertarian issue that I also understand as a significant issue. That issue is that even though that's what the collection is, the collection is pointed outward and it has to be by statute, it's required that they only try to collect that information. They incidentally collect a bunch of information as well. Because if you're going to like soak up the email correspondence, foreign nationals, you're going to get foreign nationals communicating with US Nationals and all sorts of things so that US Citizens information, their content of their emails, the content of their phone calls, the content of their text messages are in the 702 database. And so there's a whole other matter separate from this, which is about whether or not there should be a search warrant for accessing that part of the database. And that's been age old, perennial kind of issue on the Hill with the sunset and the authorization here. What's happening with the Pulte appointment is the threat that the entirety of 702 goes away. And now it says sunset it as of Friday. And I do think there's something else that's a this is much more of a like in the legal weeds, but it has serious policy implications. But it's I haven't seen anybody comment on it. What's fascinating is there has been this threat that if the statute sunsets, doesn't that mean and hasn't it sunsetted on Friday? Doesn't that mean that the entire authority goes away? There is a provision in the statute that's a grandfather clause that is supposed to allow the statute to continue for basically the authorizations that are already in place for a year. So it grandfathers it for a year. And those who want to just do away with the leverage of 702 or want to support the Pulte appointment and things like that will say, oh no, if you let it sunset, the whole thing disappears and the providers, the Internet providers, et cetera, will just not cooperate with the program anymore. We're now within 48 hours and it seems like the grandfather clause might be working because I haven't seen any reporting whatsoever that that's happened. And that's what folks at like the Brennan center would say. They would say no, it's going to continue for a year. There's, there's even a court case by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that supported the grandfather clause. So it is interesting that this, that we might be in that period now. You know, maybe they'll litigate on Monday. But it doesn't seem to be any indication that that's going to happen. So we are still in somewhat of a comfort zone of the 702 program not having disappeared. But you would think that you'd want to at least still write the ship at some point and get it back online statutorily.

[Bill Kristol]

Interesting. Interesting. Okay. And then we have so we'll see what happens with Clayton's hearing on Wednesday. And I Republicans can confirm it without any Democratic support. But be interesting to see how he answers some of these questions which you can get at least get him on record saying stuff now, whether he holds to it is a different question six months or 24 months from now. But, you know, promising not to interfere and all kinds of things, I suppose. Right. Keep the, keep the Hill apprised in a way that it hasn't been in the first year and a half of the Trump administration, et cetera. But meanwhile, Todd Blanche nominated. What is this Time flies. Was it already just this last week or maybe a week? A little over a week ago. I can't keep track anymore. A little over a week ago, I think to be act to be Attorney general. He's been acting Attorney General since Pam Bondi was fired. He's been Deputy Attorney General since basically the beginning of the administration. What do you make of that? And, and how part of me, part of me thinks, you know, look, whoever Trump gets this attorney general at this stage is good or acting is going to be a Trump loyalist. He's Trump. This is like, but a high priority of Trump to have loyalists at places like the Justice Department. So it's, you know, it's, maybe one shouldn't fight too much about the individual, but I don't know. On the other hand, the one time we, the Senate gets to weigh in and, you know, has to weigh in is hearings and votes on confirmation of these individuals. So what's, what's your read on the Blanche situation?

[Ryan Goodman]

So he was approved by the Senate for being Deputy Attorney General. So the question is, you would think that generally speaking, that would be almost by default. It would be a glide path to being approved for Attorney General or confirmed for Attorney General. But, but he's carried out the, his position as Deputy Attorney General and acting Attorney General in a horrible manner that I think anybody in their heart of hearts who's been closely looking at this knows that he has basically disqualified himself for the job in the ways in which he's been. So I, I mean, I can't think of a better word than corrupt. So it's been just horrible what he's done to the Justice Department writ large and, you know, Epstein manners, you know, one of the things on the list, but so many others. And so I, I, you know, my hope of hope for the country in a sense is that this backfires in the very fact that he's being put up for confirmation by the Senate that he gets rejected and there are members of the Senate who on the Republican side who I think might very well do so. And that would be good for the country that it's, in fact, I agree with you that the next person up and the acting attorney general could be just as bad, if not worse. But it would be very important to send the signal and actually in a sense just reject him or toss him out, because I don't think he's, he remains as acting attorney general if he's rejected by the Senate for confirmation. So this is an important moment for the country. And I think it's also in some sense, I think, counterproductive for the Trump administration to have even nominated him because now they didn't have to do it and didn't have to do it at this time. But I can, I can imagine that this will inform voters in a deep sense about what's been going on in the Justice Department, because that's how these nominations often work in that sense. So I think that there'll be value in that.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, that's interesting. Well, let's see what happens in the hearings and, or the debate before the hearings. There's been an awful lot of focus on Epstein, understandably, I'd say, and the slush fund. But the way you're putting it is much broader in terms of his overall

[Ryan Goodman]

supervision of The Justice Department 100% and the firings of the Justice Department career attorneys for purely ideological reasons. The idea that they were assigned to work on Trump related prosecutions, it's just repulsive. And there are just so many things, I think, putting your finger on the slush fund as well, something that across the country, American citizens and Republicans on the Hill just were absolutely repulsed by. And here's this guy, Todd Blanch, carrying it out, justifying it as though it's purely normal. And that really is turning the government inside out in terms of rule of law kind of government. So the idea that that person would be the Attorney general is anathema to the way that the Justice Department has tried to build itself back since Nixon. And this is much worse than Nixon, many ways.

[Bill Kristol]

Thanks. You and your colleagues at Just Security have been very following closely what's been happening at the Defense Department. Speaking of another important agency, you've written a taught on the drug boats, blowing up the boats with the alleged drug smugglers on them and legal questions about that. The call question about the Iran war, obviously, and its constitutionality or, and legality. Recently we seem to have killed a leader of the, one of the gangs in Venezuela. We joined, I guess with the Venezuelan government to do so. But say a word about what is going what about how worried should one be about the rule of law at the Defense Department and then go through some of these particular whatever particulars you want, because it's important, I think, and it's fallen a little bit out of the news because there's so much else going on at DNI and Justice.

[Ryan Goodman]

Yeah, yeah. So I, I can see different sides of legal arguments on the Iran conflict. I, I can articulate, I think, like the strongest arguments for and against and, and the rest in terms of the resort to armed force against Iran. I can see that on the boat strikes piece, there's no good legal argument on the side of the killing spree. So the use of lethal force and the boats and the lichenite. I only know of one article that's ever been written in this entire period, like a blog post trying to legally justify it. And it's just a ridiculous argument. And so what happened on Friday I think is just absolutely remarkable. And like you say, it's just, it's lost in the media. It's lost in the coverage. The President United States posted on Truth Social that the United States military forces had killed Nina Guerrero, who's the head of the Trend Aragua gang in Venezuela, and he's indicted in the United States for crimes. But we don't engage in extrajudicial killings of alleged criminals. They're supposed to be taken to trial. And the crimes that he's actually indicted for, I'm not even sure, I don't think they're capital offense, none of them capital offenses. So even if he were tried and proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be guilty, he'd be imprisoned. So the United States just killed somebody? Murdered. That's the word I was going to say, but the word is murder. And it's, it would be murder. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a person in Venezuela, the Venezuelan government doesn't have any, doesn't say any pretenses of saying, oh, this is an armed conflict. And that's what they're just like, no, we killed this guy. The. And the President and the Secretary of Defense have come out saying this is exactly what we did. When the CIA has engaged in assassinations in the past, it was all kept secret.

[Bill Kristol]

Secret.

[Ryan Goodman]

And there would be a very hard claim to make that they were legal. I just don't see any way around this being anything other than murder. And I think it's important to underscore when the head of State of the Philippines, Duterte, engaged in extrajudicial killings of drug gang leaders, he was condemned by the US Senate on a bipartisan basis with the legislation being led by Senator Rubio, and the legislation just condemns it as extrajudicial killings. Duterte is now in the Hague being prosecuted for crimes against humanity for that campaign of murdering people who might very well be criminals. And so to me, it's just absolutely astonishing that this is announced by the President and the Secretary of Defense. And I don't know any other way around it than that it's cold blooded murder. And the President's truth Social Post tries to justify it as that Trinderagua, this gang, which is kind of like a street gang according to US Intelligence community, is an army. And I just would like people to reflect on that. If the reason that we, the United States military can go out and kill the head of a Trenda Araga because they are an army, well then that army, that army, according to Stephen Miller and others, is inside the United States. What's the limiting principle to using lethal force inside the United States against alleged drug gang members? Why can't the President just start engaging in authorizing the killings of those people and those people then materially support them and the like? Now the difference might be we can try to tie it up in the Constitution on constitutional protections that apply within the four corners of the United States, something like that. But you know, Godspeed on that one. You know, do you think that that really constrains Hegseth and the rest of them? So that to me is just really kind of scary stuff. That's one piece of it and I think that's the most important piece of it, even to the point that I hesitate on mentioning the second piece. But the second piece is relevant, which is it just shows the hypocrisy of all of it inside the US Courtrooms. The US government's position is under the Alien Enemies act, the idea that they can summarily deport alleged members of the Trend Nicaragua gang. The entire argument is predicated and it has to be predicated as a matter of statute because that's how the Alien Enemies act statute is constructed on the idea that the Trend Aragua gang is acting at the direction of the Venezuelan government. And what does the Trump Truth Social Post say? It was done with full cooperation. The Venezuela and the Hegseth one. I actually have the quote here. Quote, this is from Hexith's X post. Quote, the operation underscores the shared U.S. and Venezuelan commitment to take the fight to narco terrorists and deny them any safe haven in our hemisphere, end quote. Well, if it's the United States acting with the Venezuelan government, then the Alien Enemies act statute cannot apply. The Alien Enemies act statute Requires. Requires that the United States be under a incursion or invasion from a foreign government. And their bizarro theory is that the Trenda Aragua gang has been acting at the direction of the foreign government of Venezuela. That just evaporates with what's happening in the real world rather than what's happening in the courtroom. So it just shows the ridiculousness of the Justice Department position. I think it also should be a warning sign to any of the judges and the Supreme Court when they finally decide the Alien Enemies act case, whatever, you know, if they want to decide it in favor of the Trump administration on the basis of facts presented by the Justice Department, good luck with that, because the next morning, the president might just rip the rug out from under them. On those aren't the facts. Actually, the real facts are these. So I think that's another piece of it that dovetails with what the litigation is doing.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, that secondary point, as you described, is actually very interesting and important. I should think, what's up? And say, what about the alienated sex? We were all discussing it a year ago, and obviously it was very important. They invoked it to deport people and to terrible, you know, to El Salvador and all that. And is that. Is there a case coming pending before the Supreme Court? What's what.

[Ryan Goodman]

It's really interesting. So there was a. The litigation was happening across the country, which was in some ways, it was thought to be a benefit to the Trump administration that it was dispersed because they tried to unify it. The litigators, the plaintiffs, tried to unify it under like, one umbrella and a kind of a class action type suit. But the Supreme Court did not allow them to do that. They said you have to do it in habeas, and then it goes to each of the individual districts. So two things happened. One, it counterintuitively hurt the Trump administration, I think, by going out across the country, because all of these judges, Trump appointees include, decided that the invocation of the Alien Enemies act was bogus, that it was invalid. And now that's also gotten fully consolidated in the Fifth Circuit, which is one of the most. One or two of the most conservative jurisdictions in the country, more conservative than the Roberts court. Yet a panel of the 5th Circuit also said that the invocation of the Alien Enemies act was invalid. Notably, one of the reasons they said it was invalid is because Trend Naraga is not an organized armed group. And so just kind of goes back to like an extrajudicial killing on the notion that there. This was the head of the trend Iragua army the fifth Circuit, super conservative and under doctrines of judicial decision making deferential to the administration and yet still says like this is ridiculous. So it's been at the fifth Circuit. What then happened is it's quite interesting that the administrator, the Trump administration took it en banc so that the entire fifth Circuit can review the three judge panel. And I'm pretty sure our argument was in January. So we've been just sitting and waiting. I don't know what we are waiting for. That's a really long time. You think the judges have made up their mind by now, but they have yet to hand down their decision. So across the country, all of the litigation has been frozen in place waiting for the fifth Circuit. When the Supreme Court did weigh in, they actually said let's bring this back expeditiously. And they did that even in a kind of an interesting device. They did not hand the case all the way back to the district court. They handed it back to the court of Appeals at the 5th Circuit in order to get it expedited. So we're just hanging, waiting for the fifth Circuit. I imagine that the fifth Circuit will, because it's super conservative, will uphold the proclamation and validate the invocation of the Alien Enemies act and then it will go to the Supreme Court where I would, if you were to ask me to bet, I would say that the Supreme Court is going to invalidate it for various reasons. It's and, and the reasons are like they know what's happening. And there's instances in which Chief Justice Roberts had done this in the. And an important instance, I should say not instances done this in the first Trump administration saying look, we know what's really going on. We can't pretend to buy into the invented reality of what the administration is selling us. We can't. In some ways the court would lose its legitimacy by doing that in a different way that Roberts might care about with respect to the public understanding, the entire intelligence community understanding that the theory of the case by the Trump administration is totally bogus. So I think that there multiple ways in which the Supreme Court can come out against the Trump administration on the this particular invocation.

[Bill Kristol]

Interesting.

[Bluff]

What's going on everyone? It's bluff here and we're driving through the states in the bluff Mobile and the best thing that we can do is play our favorite casino style games on Spin Quest. They have over a thousand games including live dealer blackjack and craps. With tons of slots and unlimited options. You can get a 30 coin pack for just $10 for new users sign up today. Go to spinquest.com right now.

[Spinquest Announcer]

Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

[Ryan Goodman]

So good, so good, so good.

[Nordstrom Rack Announcer]

New markdowns up to 70% off are at Nordstrom Rack stores. Now. Stock up and save big on shoes, tops, dresses, accessories and more must haves for summer. Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

[Bill Kristol]

I'll let you go. It's Sunday morning, but maybe one last question. Just what are we three weeks in the end of the Supreme Court term? What should people be looking for? What are the 1, 2, 3 biggest decisions pending and what, what do you expect if you want to guess about that?

[Ryan Goodman]

Oh yeah, right. So yeah. So birthright citizenship, of course, because that's an important one that's probably in all likelihood going against the Trump administration. The one that I'm watching and I think a lot of people are also watching. There are different ones. There's one on mail in voting that's important. And you know, I just should say that I think the one decision by the U.S. supreme Court, the Calais decision on the Voting Rights act is a stain on the Supreme Court and John Roberts legacy. I am just astounded by it. And then the follow up case with Alabama in that the three judge panel, including two Trump appointees, had determined that it was a clear racially discriminatory map. And then the Supreme Court going the other direction on that. I think that's calamitous. And, and just to mention as well, you know, the Voting Rights act was supported by leading Republicans on the Hill at the time. But the other one that I'm looking for looking at is what the Supreme Court does with the ability of the president United States to remove people from, from the commissioners and the like on different independent agencies. And that's like the National Labor Review Board. And that's one of the most important ones in the sense of how much power does the president have to just control all of those agencies and the ways in which the Supreme Court's going to overrule in all likelihood its own precedent on that because the theories of unitary executive, but and it will consolidate his power there. They'll have some kind of carve out for the Federal Reserve Board, which doesn't make sense analytically. It's very difficult to carve it out. But for that, all expectations are that they will just uphold their long standing, the conservative wings, long standing unitary executive idea that the president can completely control anybody who's an executive official in that capacity, in those kinds of capacities. What I'm looking for is whether or not there's actually any nuance in the way in which the court does it. Now that they see what a president could do with those powers under the Trump second administration and abusing those powers, they might very well think, as I think the Roberts court sometimes does, which is they think, look, we're not writing for the next two and a half years. We're writing for the decades and the century ahead. And our view of the Constitution is that there's a unitary executive power and that's where we're going, but it gives Donald J. Trump enormous authorities in the interim. Or do they do some kind of nuance because they see the abuse that's happening and that there's been, there's been some commentary since the oral argument that suggests they might walk a different line than the full blown maximalist view of this. So that's one thing I'm looking for that's interesting.

[Bill Kristol]

It's the full blown maximus view, as I understand it would be that the president could fire anyone, not just executives at on boards. I mean the independent agency, things a little more complicated. Maybe there's a colorable argument for some of what they're, what they're claiming there. It's a little, you know, these are policymaking officials maybe, and therefore. But I think someone from the Justice Department, the judge's department in the district court maybe two weeks ago defended the firing of a lawyer at the Justice Department, not a super top level lawyer just on the grounds he can fire anyone he wants. I mean basically. And why doesn't that, why doesn't that just destroy all of our civil service and the pendleton act and 150 years of trying to insulate to some degree some parts of the executive branch from pure political and personal control of the president and his appointee and his political appointees. I mean, do you think that's far fetched to say that in a way the whole structure of the civil service is somewhat at risk and maybe they'll think about that and cabinet a little bit their opinion? I don't know.

[Ryan Goodman]

No, I think, I completely agree. It's not far fetched at all. I think it's, I think it's the more likely, it's quite a likely outcome and concern that it has that reverberating effect. There's no necessary limiting principle question whether or not the conservative justices care if it's, if it goes that far. And absolutely what you say is right in the sense that a lot of the people have been fired, these career civil servants and the like, inside DOJ and elsewhere, their letters just invoke Article 2 of the Constitution as the basis for the removal. Not for cause, doesn't need to even state for cause, just he's Article two, he's the President, he gets to decide. And indeed it has the complete effect that you just described. It means political loyalists and the like. And that this becomes a spoil system in which the President can dole out or fire people at will because they are or are not affiliated or loyal or they have a friend who has a friend who is in the government, things like that. So that's. It really would be transformative in that sense. And the worst thing about it as well, just in terms of our structure of government, the way you put it is I think the worst thing about that is. And then what on earth can Congress do? Because the idea is that the implication is this is Article 2 power. Congress can't legislate. It's in fact invalidating the civil service protections that have been put in there by statute. What, how on earth does Congress even repair this? In a kind of rule of law Congress and administration or White House that wouldn't veto the statute, how do you put things back in place? It's very hard to think through how that all works. And there are people who are trying to do that right now. The folks who are planning and this is happening in different networks and whatnot. Planning. How is it better to restructure government if the new rule of law administration comes into the White House, Republican or Democratic, and re envisioning that at just security, we're going to have this kind of series in terms of like reinvention blueprints. And that's a really difficult nut to crack with the unitary executive theory of the conservative court. How you possibly even get statutes to

[Bill Kristol]

repair the damage, to show honestly how nuts the extending the theory, whatever it's truth about certain aspects of government. The idea that you're gonna have a massive administrative state and have no protections. And sadly that's. I mean Congress wasn't being like ideological particularly, I don't think, or foolish when they passed the original Civil Service act, which is what, 150 years ago or something like that, or the Administrative Procedures act in 1946. They had a real problem to grapple with, which is how do you have Medicare or Social Security? You name It. Right. And not have people deciding that they give their buddies the, the benefits and deprive their political opponents or other racial groups, anyone of benefits. They don't like them. And so maybe the system was set up, could use some reform. Maybe it's too bureaucratic. Maybe there's places you separate the political appointees from the civil service. The idea that you're going to just gut this whole thing. It was a perfectly reasonable, I believe, and very much in the spirit, I would almost say of the founding Fathers and the separation of powers and the constitutional, constitutional thinking to think, okay, how do we balance these things? I mean, checks and balances always. I mean, as they say and explain in the federal papers, this has to be, in fact, you can't have separate. The powers can't simply be separate or then they wouldn't be able to check each other. So there was always an attempt to mingle the powers to them. That's literally defended in the Federalist Papers. But somehow the unitary executive doesn't believe in that. It's kind of crazy. It seems to be a little bit. Honestly.

[Ryan Goodman]

Yeah. And yeah, especially the maximized version of it, which seems to be the current view of the conservative members of the Court. And there have been some conservative scholars just very recently who have come out with work that is consistent with what you just said. Like, if you really look at the originalist understanding, this extremist version of unitary executive theory doesn't match up. And so, you know, there's a small part of me that, you know, hopes that some of the Supreme Court justices are persuaded by that if they're true to some of the methodologies that they invoke. So we, we shall see, I guess. And that, you know, maybe the current state of affairs in the United States gives them pause as to how far down that road they want to push it. But I, this is, I do think enormously what's at risk here.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, let's hope. Thank you. That's really clarifying and helpful and we'll have to get back together and maybe at the end of the term, just in a month and see what we've, what we learn in these several key cases. Right. So, Brian, thanks so much for, for joining me again today. Really very interesting discussion.

[Ryan Goodman]

Thank you. Great to be with you and thank

[Bill Kristol]

you all for joining us on Bulwark on Sunday.

[Bluff]

What's going on, everyone? It's bluff here. And you know what's more American than America's 250th birthday? Supporting American owned companies like Spinquest America's number one social casino with over a thousand games like Live Live Dealer, Blackjack and Craps. They're offering new users a 30 coin package for just $10. Go to spinquest.com and sign up today.

[Spinquest Announcer]

Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

[Apartments.com Announcer]

Ever walk past a place for rent and wish you could just take a peek inside, Maybe even explore the layout? Envision the natural light streaming through the windows, or plan where your vinyl record collection would go. At apartments. Com you can with tools like their 3D virtual tours, you can see the exact unit you could be living in. Really envision yourself in your new home with Apartments.com, the place to find a place.