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It's Tuesday, December 9, 2025. I'm Albert Mohler and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Oral arguments yesterday at the Supreme Court of the United States. And it is over whether or not the President of the United States can fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission, more or less because the President doesn't want this person on the Federal Trade Commission. And as the news reports came in yesterday, it was pretty clear that observers of the hearing at the Supreme Court yesterday had a pretty good idea that a majority of the Justices were going to rule in the President's favor. And there are many people, particularly on the left, who are going into absolute apoplexy. You know, this is a really big issue. It's worthy of our attention. Should the President of the United States be able, as the nation's chief executive, to fire members of so called independent federal agencies? Well, let's just talk about the big problem. There is the word independent. If you go back to the beginning of the 20th century, we saw something develop in the United States that had never existed before. And that is a new branch of government. No one wanted to call it that. No one dared call it that. You know, the three branches of government, constitutionally, we have the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. And thus you have three different branches of government. You have a separation of powers. Each is given assignment within the constitutional order, and none is to fail at its duties nor to encroach upon the duties of others. Specific responsibilities are given to Congress. Specific responsibilities are given to the courts. Specific responsibilities are given to the presidency, indeed to the President. Okay, that takes us back to the Founding and, and particularly it takes us back to the framing of the Constitution itself. That separation of powers was between the courts. And of course, at the very top of that, the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court of the United States includes the Chief justice and associate justices. You have the legislature, 535 members of the Senate and the House. That's a lot of people. And then you have the President, the President as the chief executive. That's one person. Now, there were those at the time who were very concerned about the power of a single individual, all that power being invested in one person. And of course, the only way that really became the Constitution as we know it today, the only reason it was plausible, the only reason it was ratified, is because everyone in the room at the time knew that George Washington was going to be the first President of the United States. And thus there was enormous personal trust in George Washington. As a matter of fact, that was essential to the entire project. And President Washington knew, once he was in office, that the pattern he set would likely set the pattern for presidents to come. And in many ways it has, even how you refer to the President of the United States, even when it comes to much protocol. But within just a few short years of Washington leaving office, some of the things that he feared had already taken place. The development of political parties. And furthermore, you had presidents in office who did not understand the presidency in exactly the same way. And I would say, just for the sake of thinking in really clear terms, concise terms, let's say that you shift from George Washington to Andrew Jackson and you're looking at a far more activist presidency. You're looking at a far more concentrated assertion of presidential power. And that brings us to the current debate. But in order to understand what took place at the Supreme Court yesterday, you need to understand that in the 1920s, in particular early in the 20th century, the decision was made largely through the influence of progressivists, as they were known, and in particular, President Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson, before he was president, believed that the Constitution of the United States would was already out of date, that the nation had outgrown the Constitution. He was a big believer in what became known as the administrative state. He saw Bismarck, the Chancellor in Germany, put together a government that was largely ruled by an elite of professionals. He thought that was better than trusting an elected government and especially Congress to fulfill all these responsibilities. And so he favored the development of what really is an administrative state. It is a fourth branch of government, not in the Constitution. And that takes us back to the case yesterday, which has to do with whether President Trump can fire Rebecca Slaughter as a member of the Federal Trade Commission. And that takes us back to 1935 in a case known as Humphrey's executor. Now, 1935, that's a long standing Supreme Court precedent. 1935 to 20, 25, 90 years. But in 1935, the Supreme Court held that the President of the States could not just at will dismiss members of these commissions boards, different federal agencies that were supposedly quasi independent. They weren't a part of the legislative branch. They weren't exactly part of the executive branch either. Now, there are only three branches mentioned in the Constitution. And when you look at these so called independent agencies that began to emerge particularly in the early 20th century, they really exploded in the New Deal and the Roosevelt administration. But what you're looking at is that more and more the actual Functions of government was taken away from legislators, taken away from the White House, and invested in a regime of experts. And that is exactly what Germany wanted. It fits the German model. That is not what Americans were bargaining for. So we're not talking about a cabinet agency like the Department of the Treasury. No. We're talking about something like the Federal Trade Commission, all kinds of commissions. We're talking about the Federal Reserve. We're talking about all kinds of these federal entities that are not a part of the legislative branch and they are not a part of the executive branch. They're supposedly independent, but of course they can't be fully independent. And so Congress in some cases has the power to appoint certain persons to these entities, and the White House has the opportunity to appoint certain persons to these entities. So they're not independent as if they self perpetuate in most cases. But we do have a situation in which we have an unaccountable body of experts. And you know, presidents have been pressing back on this. One of the presidents who pressed back on this was Ronald Reagan. And there were other presidents who had vast concerns about this. And by the way, not limited to Republicans, it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who had some of the concerns about this. And yet what we're looking at right now is the fact that the administrative state has only grown and grown and grown, and it's grown so much that no individual person at any time can even identify how many people work for it. Furthermore, Congress has basically abdicated power over the promulgation of all kinds of rules and regulations. You can just take many of these agencies and entities. They basically have power to arrest you and to try you and to convict you, and they may not call it that, but you may be fined or you may have to suffer some other kind of judgment. You may have to be commanded to follow some other kind of rule. And it's even beyond that. There are so many parts of our economy that are under the direct influence, if not the direct control of some of these so called independent agencies. President Trump is pressing the case for what is known as the unitary executive theory. The unitary executive theory says that in the Constitution, the President is the chief executive of the nation, he is the President of the United States, and, and all of the government that isn't in the judiciary or in the legislative branch is under the President of the United States. And the President is making the argument he can fire these members at will. Now, there's some other aspects of this that are really interesting because there was a young lawyer working in the Reagan Administration and working at developing the idea of the unitary presidency and in particular cutting back the, the power grab by these administrative agencies. He was, he was a lawyer working on these things. He is now Chief justice of the United States and thus he's in a position to press this, and he really did. Yesterday, for instance, at one point in the oral arguments yesterday, those arguing against the right of the President to remove a member of the Federal Trade Commission made the statement that the precedent was Humphrey's executive, that 1935 Supreme Court decision. And it was the Chief justice who responded, well, you know, the administrative state now is not what the administrative state was then. When the Supreme Court made that determination 90 years ago, basically acknowledging there's been a vast power grab and a vast expansion of the so called independent agencies and their reach. He referred by the way, to other decisions already made by the Court incrementally and said that Humphrey's executive is basically now a husky. Okay, so if the Chief justice of the United States in oral argument says that the precedent you cited is just a husk, I'll just say it's not looking good for you. But the really interesting moment came when I think the most liberal member on the Court right now, and that's Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, when she said to the Solicitor General, quote, independent agencies exist because Congress has deemed some issues should be handled by nonpartisan experts. Having a President come in and fire all the doctors and scientists and replace them with loyalists and is not in the interest of the American people, end quote. So now let me just say that's not a stupid argument. That is not a stupid argument. If you're going to have scientists and doctors and other experts and they're going to be charged with the determination of policy in all these areas, you don't want the President of the United States just putting a bunch of cronies on these commissions. That's the argument and I don't hold to that argument. But I want to say there's logic to that argument and the logic is based upon the first part of the sentence that came from Justice Jackson. She said independent agencies exist because Congress has deemed some issues should be handled by nonpartisan experts. Okay, there's the problem and there's the ghost of Bismarck and there's the ghost of Woodrow Wilson who thought even before he was elected President that the nation had already outgrown the Constitution. I'll say, I think, by the way, that compromise is his ability to take the oath of office. But nonetheless, that's ancient history. Right now, 100 years ago. But we are looking squarely at the argument. We are told that some issues are so important that Congress can't handle them, the President can't handle them, and so we need them to be handled by nonpartisan experts. Okay, now, number one, do we believe that such persons exist, nonpartisan experts? Well, let's just say that the Christian worldview doesn't deny expertise. So we do recognize that if you want an engineer for a job, you want a good one. If you want an architect to design your building, I can assure you you want a good one, you want one who's very good at architecture. And I'll just raise the stakes. If you're going to have major surgery, you want expertise, unquestioned expertise when it comes to that surgeon. But when you put nonpartisan in front of expert, you've got a big problem. So now I'm going to make an absolute claim and I intend to stand by it. I've stood by it for a long time. Even if persons do not know themselves to be partisan, in a partisan context, they are partisan. Which is to say that so many of the issues before these commissions and different independent supposedly bodies, so many of them have to do with politics, which does come down to red, blue, liberal, conservative. And even if you claim that this is all based on expertise, human beings are human beings. And so again, if you need some kind of really technical surgery, the first concern that you bring to the choice of a surgeon is probably not politics. On the other hand, that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking here about rulings and the promulgation of policy. Okay, so that is inherently political. Even when you want to say that it's not. Just consider the context of COVID 19, the pandemic, the government shutdown all of the authority that was in these agencies. And the American people had a sudden awakening to the power of these agencies and frankly, the threat they presented to, to American liberty. I mentioned the theory of the unitary executive and it's just because you read the Constitution and the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President of the United States may hire, in fact is the Constitution required to nominate certain officers. He obviously is not going to run the government by himself. And at this point, you know, they have all been men. The presidents have run the government by their appointments and by their supervision and their executive authority. I think it is incredibly dangerous indeed. I think it is something that puts at risk our entire constitutional order. If you have a non constitutional fourth branch of government, I don't think that works. It shouldn't work. It's not going to work. I think the President is absolutely right, as conservatives have been right, I believe, for decades to push against the idea of the administrative state having authority on its own. And when you hear a statement such as by Justice Jackson when she speaks of this body of, quote, nonpartisan experts, I think you do understand. In fact, she said Congress has deemed some issues should be handled by nonpartisan experts. Now that's another part of the problem. Congress has abdicated its responsibility. I appreciated the statement made by Sarah Isker in an opinion piece for the New York Times. And I think she's absolutely right when she says our founders would be shocked by the current constitutional order, not by a presidency that has ballooned beyond recognition. They were well aware of the threats a power hungry president could pose, but by the state of Congress for not more jealously guarding its power and prestige, they would be confused that so many of its more than 500 members seem to have no further ambition than to act like glorified Instagram influencers. Now I think that's a very valid argument, not against every senator or representative, but against Congress for having abdicated so much of its responsibility. And you know what? It will be politically difficult for Congress to call this back, but it must do that. We must have a healthy Congress that is acting. Congress was intended to act. And that's one of the reasons why you have two different chambers established. You have the House of Representatives and the Senate, and they are not the same thing. And the Senate is a slower body, but both are to be marked by action and by the right kind of taking of responsibility and by the zealous and jealous guarding of the congressional authority. If the Congress won't act, if it tries to concede all this authority to so called independent agencies, Congress can hardly be surprised when a President decides, you know, there really is no such thing as an independent agency. Congress just handed this to me. Now, I think the founders were right to establish the presidency as they did. And I think the theory of the unitary executive is basically very sound. I think it's a necessary corrective. I'll also tell you right now, I'm not going to like it when a liberal president assumes the same kind of responsibility. But I think that is our constitutional order. And I think when you look at the current shape of our government, one of the biggest things is, number one, the biggest thing is the growth of the government, period. But it is the growth of these so called independent agencies built on the logic that Justice Jackson talked about Congress deciding we needed to give that to a group of nonpartisan experts. The growth of the administrative state within the growth of the government has just been explosive and and I think it is a direct threat to democratic self government. Okay, so a lot of stake at the Supreme Court yesterday, a lot more at stake than most Americans would recognize. Huge worldview issues and long historic issues here. And the Supreme Court is going to have to rule on this. And that won't be the end of the matter. But you know what? It might be the end of Humphrey's executor as a precedent. That will be no small thing. But you know that reference to social media and so many members of Congress acting more like social media influencers than legislators. Again, not fair in terms of all members of the Senate and the House, but it's fair as a characterization of what's happening to politics. And that takes us to a second issue we need to consider today. That takes us to Australia where this week a ban on social media platforms for adolescents and children under age 16 goes into effect. And evidently you would think that the dark ages are about to descend the they're down under 13 to 15 year olds in particular are up at arms at being separated from platforms. 10 platforms are covered, by the way, and they include Facebook, Instagram, Kik, Reddit, Snapchat threads, TikTok, twitch X and YouTube. And this just means a blanket ban on anyone under 16 years of age. Now the response to it is really, really interesting. Number one, you have teenagers, middle schoolers primarily, who are just really up in arms, but also all the way up to 15 year olds. And what is becoming more and more clear is they're telling journalists and they're telling us what we already knew and that is that so much of their lives is online and now they're in danger by action of the government of being cut off from these platforms. And yet maybe not. One of the things that is pointed out is that government, if anything in this case, may have acted too late. And that is because so many of these teenagers, and they're all part of a generation known as the digital natives, which is to say they grew up with it, so they never known a time when it didn't exist. And as parents often know, they're more adept at some of these technologies, these young people, than older people. And for one thing, many of them are aware of VPNs and other technologies that are ways they might be able to get around. And besides that, one of the things pointed out by law enforcement officials there in Australia is that many of these young people are only on social media now because they've already lied, they've lied about their age and they went around whatever policies were in place. They are now up at arms at being separated from these platforms. And the question is, how effective will this be? And Australian legislators and many Australian parents and observers are saying, well, it may not be as effective as we want it to be, but we have to do something. Now this gets to something that isn't addressed in most of this conversation and I want to address it right now. Where in the world are the parents? Where in the world are the parents? For instance, one 15 year old boy that was the focus of an article that appeared in the Times. Wall Street Journal has had similar articles. Washington Post. Just about everybody is looking at this and of course the big question for them is whether or not similar kinds of measures will be taken here in the United States or in other countries. When you look at some of the comments made by the teenagers who are about to lose their current access to these platforms, one 15 year old boy said he's had unfettered access. In other words, his parents have no idea what he's doing and evidently no concern with what he's doing and he'll find a way to get around this. In other words, you know, pass whatever ban you want. You're not going to keep me off the platform and my parents don't care. And he just said the parents don't have any involvement. Well, where in the world are they now? I think that's probably indicative of other issues in this boy's life in which they're completely hands off and probably absolutely ignorant. And it's a very sad thing. In other words, I'm not discounting at all the pernicious power of these social media platforms. I want to affirm the understanding that there's a pernicious influence here. I can't imagine taking a young person and saying, hey, go into the wilderness, more or less, you know, just go look for the wolf in the wilderness. It's just ridiculous. But where in the world are parents? No government is going to be able to control what parents won't control. Some legislators said, you know, maybe in passing this ban we'll give parents ammunition. And again, what kind of pathetic parent needs that kind of ammunition? A parent who won't parent, I don't think is going to, is going to be particularly moved by the legislation. A 15 year old boy who said, my parents have never had anything to do with my social media Use. It's hard to believe they're going to say, oh, by the way, this law has been passed. We're all of a sudden interested. I just have to wonder, where in the world are the parents? This reminds us of subsidiarity. And that's another basic Christian affirmation. Subsidiarity technically means that the greatest truth, reality, authority, subsides at the most basic fundamental level. Make you happy. All right. What that means is that when you look at, say, the parenting of children, authority over children, responsibility for children, to whom is that invested? It is most effectively and truly authoritatively invested in the home with parents as the authority. This also affirms creation order, the understanding that God created the family for the raising of children, among other goods. It is assigned the task of raising children. If parents won't do it, government is going to be incompetent to do it. That doesn't mean government can't step in sometimes and help in a broken situation, but it does mean governments can't parent. And the Australian government is not going to individually supervise the 13 to 15 year olds covered primarily by this law. This new law in Australia, that's up to parents. Parents are either going to do it or they're not going to do it. And for Christian parents, I simply have to say, yeah, lean into creation order, lean into subsidiarity, but far more importantly, lean into parenting with love and authority and all the requisite structure and energy, your children. And understand the threat that the social media exposure represents. And you know, we probably shouldn't make most nouns into verbs, but I'll just say it does communicate. We need parents to parent and children need parents to parent and that is going to take a lot of time and it's going to be emotionally costly. On the other hand, look at the stakes and understand what happens when that authority is not applied, when that parental love is not directed, and when parental oversight is missing. You end up with a 15 year old with a smartphone and a virtual private network. What could possibly go wrong? And you know, the answer is everything. Meanwhile, finally, another story from Australia. This one is a debate in that country down under over whether or not to continue the use of shark nets in frequented beaches. We are told that numerous beaches in Australia have these shark nets and they're controversial because they tend to catch not only some sharks but also some other marine life. And there are people who are saying, look, there's an ecological concern, there's a marine life concern, we need to stop using these nets. The beginning of this entire net System goes back to 1937 after there was a spate of attacks. Similar kinds of efforts, not nets so much, but beach patrols in particular came in the United States about the same time when there was another outbreak of shark attacks. By the way, if you're talking about two nations which share kind of a top tier in shark attacks around the world, the United States and Australia would be those countries, Australia basically at the top of the list. This debate has been going on and during the time even the debate has been pretty, pretty public, there were two human deaths by shark attacks. And that's a sobering thing. Now behind all of this there's some really big issues, big worldview significance. I've been fascinated with sharks ever since I was a little boy and growing up in Florida, by the way. And I have a hammerhead shark hanging on my wall and I've been fascinated with them. Did a science report in the fourth grade and just absolutely fascinated. But you know, one of the things that comes up in this is that I don't see anyone saying that marine life is so important that it's equal to human life. And so even as people are saying, yes, we're concerned about marine life, I think one of the things that is acknowledged in this debate is that human life is categorically different.