Does the news today make you wish you knew more about Constitutional Law? It turns out there is a podcast that focuses on it. What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law is a Radiotopia podcast.
What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law is hosted by Roman Mars. He is the host and creator of 99% Invisible. He is also the co-founder of Radiotopia, a collective of ground-breaking independent podcasts.
Professor Elizabeth Joh is the person who explains Constitutional Law on the What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law podcast. She is a law professor at University of California, Davis, School of Law, where she teaches constitutional law and criminal procedure. She has written widely on law and emerging technologies.
Professor Elizabeth Joh teaches Intro to Constitutional Law and most of the time this is a pretty straight forward job. But with Trump in office, everything has changed. Five minutes before class Professor Joh checks Twitter to find out what the 45th President has said and how it jibes with 200 years of judicial branch interpreting and ruling on the Constitution.
A introduction episode was posted on June 7, 2017. Since then, there have been three full episodes. Episode one, titled “Judicial Legitimacy” reminds us when Trump tweeted a criticism of a “so-called judge” who blocked enforcement of his travel ban. The episode includes information about when President Truman and the court strongly disagreed.
Episode two is titled: “The Appointments Clause and Removal Power”. It focuses on a clause in the Constitution that describes how the president can hire certain political appointees with the advice and consent of the Senate. The clause doesn’t say when the president can fire someone. The episode discusses Trump’s firings and puts them in the context of relevant Supreme Court cases.
Episode three is called “Pardon Power”. This episode focuses on the Constitution’s presidential pardon power that could potentially be used to absolve members of the Trump administration – or Trump himself. It reveals what the Constitution says about how a pardon has to be presented.