Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the Wallbuilders show where we take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective today, focusing on that constitutional reform expected to put on your questions, which you get to ask today. Radio@wallbuilders.com is where you send a radio@wallbuilders.com. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday. We'll cover as many as we can today. If we don't get to them, we'll try next week, but send them into radio@wallbuilders.com. Rick Greene here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Guys we're just going to jump right in. First one is actually a lot of folks have been wondering this. I even get asked this in person at events. Y'all probably are as well. But Sarah words it well. She says, I know we're all liking the executive orders coming out of the administration, but I also know that it's not how our country was designed to operate. What do you guys think about this? Do you see it as an issue? Do you see our country getting back to its roots constitutionally? So guys, we've kind of hit around this a little bit on various topics when we talk about some of the executive orders, but perfect day to talk about it is Foundations of Freedom. So foundationally, what is the Constitution allow for with regard to executive orders and the kinds of executive orders that President Trump is, is doing right now? 

Tim Barton [00:01:13] Well, the fact that we have gotten several of these questions over the last many weeks is a good indication. Yeah, that this is something people are thinking about. And certainly we have answered. And in fact, this could have been a question that, you know, we got a week or two ago and we're just now getting to it, just like good news Friday. We have a stack of things for our Foundation of Freedom Thursday, and we try to answer them as quickly as we can, but we usually get in more questions than we have time to answer or go through. Sometimes because we only get through 1 or 2 on a program. But but certainly we have addressed this several times, and I would say the short of it is that the problem is not how many executive orders a president does. The problem is if a president is doing executive orders that don't apply to the executive branch and things that fall under the purview of the executive branch, as long as they apply to the executive branch and things under the president's control, then those are constitutional executive orders. And so it's not a problem if you're doing something constitutional with great frequency, that's not a problem. But if you are doing executive orders that are outside the purview and you start getting into trying to make law and legislation, if you start getting into trying to deal with judicial things, when you start getting into one of the other branches jurisdiction, that's when it becomes a major problem. And certainly we've had a lot of presidents do that over the years. But President Trump, surprisingly, we talked about this his first term, especially how surprised we were at the fact that he was one of the most constitutional presidents any of us have ever seen. I mean, in our lifetime, he's probably the most constitutionally grounded president when it comes to executive orders. Not that everything he did was constitutional all the time. There were definitely things we disagreed with, but with his executive orders, if it was something outside of the control or jurisdiction of the executive branch. He often gave recommendations like, we would encourage this to happen and we'd encourage this branch to do this. It wasn't a directive given as if they were his employees. And so he's been very grounded constitutionally. It wasn't his first term, and we're seeing it now in his second term. And so in my mind, that's a quick recap. But dad, I'm sure you have more and you probably have some thoughts you want to throw in there too. 

David Barton [00:03:24] Well I've got more than thoughts. I we we've had several, as you mentioned, several questions. And so I decided to kind of do a deep dive. And that's cool thing about some of these questions is sometimes they ask us things we haven't really thought about or we thought about, but we haven't really. In this case, I've never really dug into how this all happens and what's going. So let me let me throw out the what I'm going to present about executive orders here. Trump recently signed executive order. It's numbered 14,216. So there's 14,216 executive orders counting the one he just signed. The question then becomes when do we start number and executive orders? Because George didn't and John didn't, and Thomas did and the founders didn't. So when did we start numbering that. And so started looking back and trying to find out how many executive orders for each president. And the whole numbering system began in 1907, although they did not start numbering then they started saying, you know, over the Secretary of State Area and the department, Secretary of state, we got lots of executive orders from all these presidents, and they had executive orders going back to Abraham Lincoln. And so they took the ones they had at the State Department and in 1907 and started giving numbers to them. And then as they dug, there's archived things, and there's stuff in the National Archives and stuff in the Smithsonian, and they would find a bunch more. And so there were more and more numbers. And so they came up with what's called the Federal Registry Act in 1936. So that's under FDR. And that's when they started really trying to document Executive orders and put numbers on them so that know how many they were and what the scope of them was. And so counting the ones that they think are out there that have never been numbered, they think there's maybe as many as 50,000 executive orders that have been done by all the presidents up through where we are now. Now, they said that what they didn't count was executive orders that didn't have any kind of a policy impact. You know, it maybe it's executive order that says, hey, take out the trash this afternoon after you cook dinner or something. That would be an executive order to somebody on the staff, but it's not really a policy kind of thing. So they took it from the policy standpoint, and they said there could be as many as 50,000. So just going back through what they've been able to identify, and this is pretty comprehensive study they did here George Washington. How many executive orders you think you did that had policy impact? 

Rick Green [00:05:56] Yeah I and that really does change things because I, I've always thought of executive orders as any directive to the agencies, and so I thought it would be like what you're saying, 50,000, whereas if it's only a policy thing, it probably reduces it quite a bit because I was thinking like 100 or so for Washington, but I don't know. I don't know, that really does change that. I'm not sure. 

David Barton [00:06:17] Yeah. And I think the question is based on, you know, are our executive orders constitutional? I think a lot of that is because of the way Biden use executive orders to implement woke and personal policy. Yeah. And decide and here's what all the universities are going to do. And here's what all you know. And I think that that's like shortcutting the legislature when you start trying to do things to make public policy. So I Trump is making public policy. But hitherto up to this point, we think he's doing it constitutionally. We think he's doing it specifically to his agencies and saying, here's what my agencies are going to do. And he's not stepping out and telling the University of Miami and Florida what they have to do. So when you go back and say, okay, something that would have been a genuine executive order, where the president gave some kind of directive for something to be done other than, you know, I don't know, secretarial type of stuff. How many you think for George Washington? 

Tim Barton [00:07:14] Seven,. 

Rick Green [00:07:15] Maybe. Half of what I was thinking. 

David Barton [00:07:18] Tim was close. It was eight. 

Rick Green [00:07:21] Eight. That's it. 

David Barton [00:07:22] That was eight. Eight for George. John Adams had one executive order. Thomas Jefferson had four executive orders. James Madison had one. James Monroe had one. Now, you got to also remember the government was really small back then by design. We haven't expanded all the things we do now. And it also didn't meet all the time. You know, Congress and the Constitution's almost funny that the Constitution requires that Congress must meet at least once a year. Man, if we could get on and go home once a year would be great right now. So it was not it was not a big government kind of thing. So as you go through when you get it? How do you think? Let's let's say in the first 100 years of the presidency. So through through 1876, who do you think had the most executive orders? 

Rick Green [00:08:11] First 100 year. So what was. 

Tim Barton [00:08:13] That's super interesting. 

Rick Green [00:08:14] Yeah. Who would it stop with that would be? Not Lincoln, I guess. Grant or let's. 

David Barton [00:08:21] Go through, you know, spread. 

Tim Barton [00:08:22] Good. Yeah. Well, obviously. Yeah, that's that's through reconstruction. And so you definitely have your grant your Garfield kind of guys. But. 

Rick Green [00:08:30] What if Lincoln did a lot during the war, you think? 

Tim Barton [00:08:33] Well, that's a good thought because Lincoln certainly could have also thought Andrew Jackson, because when he was restructuring things and putting a lot of his buddies there, certainly he could have given a lot of executive orders creating new agencies and bureaucracy. But then you have Johnson, man, there's a lot of guys that I could see doing more executive orders up there. 

David Barton [00:08:55] So you mentioned Andrew Andrew Jackson, he did 12. You mentioned Andrew Johnson. He did 79 and you mentioned Abraham Lincoln, who did 48. So those are the numbers with those guys. And so who do you think has the most? 

Tim Barton [00:09:10] Well, you just said Johnson had the votes of the three I mentioned. So I'm going with Johnson of those three. 

David Barton [00:09:15] Johnson. Ric? Any other thoughts?

Rick Green [00:09:18] I don't know, I'm thrown off. I really am, because this definition seems to have really shrunk things down like this wouldn't even include pardons. And a lot of the things that Trump has done. Right. So it takes out a lot of the things that I've I've counted his executive orders in the past. So if it's only policy, wow. Who is a big who is a big shift? I mean Coolidge obviously that's that's later though. Okay. That's that's that's past 100. 

Tim Barton [00:09:40] I'm thinking reconstruction because there would've been a lot of policy things happening in reconstruction from a grant from a Garfield. 

Rick Green [00:09:47] Yeah, that's a good point. A lot of directives. 

David Barton [00:09:49] And that's it. 

Rick Green [00:09:50] On how to do reconstruction. 

David Barton [00:09:52] That was it. 217 for Ulysses S Grant. 

Rick Green [00:09:55] So right after the war. 

David Barton [00:09:57] That's right. You're telling. All right. Here's what we're going to the southern states. You know, that kind of stuff. And so there's 217 and Rick backing up pardons and those type of things. Those are policy directives. I mean, you're directing people to be released from prison. You're giving. You know, you're the executive branch. You execute the laws. So that would that would go within it. I would so don't don't wipe those kind of things out. Yeah though I put it out. So. Okay. You have so that now you move into the, the. And by the way in the first hundred years who had the fewest executive orders. 

Rick Green [00:10:31] Who did you say a while ago who had only one?. 

Tim Barton [00:10:31] Well John Adams had one. So if it's a less than John Adams. Yeah. Now wait a second. Let's think of people that died early. 

Rick Green [00:10:41] Oh that's right. There had to be some in the 100 days. Right? Was a Garfield and. 

Tim Barton [00:10:45] Right. I mean, Garfield died pretty early. When was McKinley? 

Rick Green [00:10:50] I, I guess Garfield's after the 100, though. 

David Barton [00:10:52] Garfield. Garfield lasted about three months, and he had six executive orders. 

Tim Barton [00:10:56] Oh, man. 

Rick Green [00:10:57] So even even in three months here a outdid I Adams. It is four years. 

David Barton [00:11:02] Or it may be six months. He may have made it six months. He was assassinated. Yeah, I think for 80 days he remained alive after being assassinated

Rick Green [00:11:09] That's right. He was bedridden for a long time there. Yeah. 

David Barton [00:11:12] Yeah. So. 

Rick Green [00:11:13] Oh, man. Yeah. I don't know. 

David Barton [00:11:16] Whether you got the right idea. It's William Henry Harrison because he died after Inauguration Day. He had none. Oh, he stood out. 

Rick Green [00:11:24] No time. 

David Barton [00:11:25] After going through Andrew Jackson, after going through Van Buren, who were, you know, kind of protege to to Jackson. He was so ready to repudiate that, that he gave a two hour inaugural speech and the reigning in the cult. And so he gave a two hour speech, and then he went on parade. And then he stood outside the white House for three hours in a greeting line, welcoming everybody in the White House, and came down with pneumonia and never got anything done. 

Rick Green [00:11:51] So now we know why the Trump swearing in was moved indoors. We wanted to make sure he because you know how long he talks. So it would have been another one of those. Yeah. Okay. So he he wasn't like Trump. It didn't have, you know, 200 executive order sitting on the desk day one. Back then they didn't do that. So he couldn't have been ready okay. I got just so he had the least meaning none. 

David Barton [00:12:14] Now when you move into the 20th century kind of era, that that, you know, after Ulysses S Grant, you've got Teddy Roosevelt with more than a thousand. 1081. You've got Woodrow Wilson with 1800 executive orders, and then you got Calvin Coolidge with 1200 executive orders. And the reason Calvin Coolidge is significant is most of his executors were reversing what what Woodrow Wilson had done. It's kind of like what Trump is doing with all the Biden stuff. Yeah. And so that's the first time you really see a battle between executive orders is is Cal. And I think Cal is one of the most constitutional presidents we've ever had. Silent Cal was his nickname because he was not loud and rambunctious about stuff. He just did it. So that's that's kind of the history of executive orders. And if you guys got a question about any I've got the numbers here for all of them. Trump by the way, in his first first term, how many to do. What do you think? 

Tim Barton [00:13:11] Well, again, because we have changed the definition of what in my head all the executive orders were I if it's not just a directive is for those under him and it's things that are more directed toward policy. 

David Barton [00:13:27] But I'll remind you that giving directives, the people under him also relates the policy, because all the stuff he's telling Elon Musk. 

Tim Barton [00:13:35] It can be doesn't have to. 

David Barton [00:13:36] Right. Don't exclude directives. 

Tim Barton [00:13:39] But again, it can, because if some of if you're giving some ideas for operational things, that's not necessarily policy in the same way. Nonetheless, he definitely I would think had quite a few, not as many problems all of this time, although that would be interesting to track and see how many this time compared to last time when he's done with this for years. But let's say let's say he had 1000. 

David Barton [00:14:06] He had 220. Okay. So first, first time 220 in. 

Rick Green [00:14:11] In four years. 

David Barton [00:14:12] And four years of Biden had 162 and four years. Obama had 276 and eight years so far. Trump has 73 right now. So in his second term. So he is up there. He now has more than Obama did in eight years. Trump in in four years in a out. So that's that's another. 

Rick Green [00:14:32] Well I, I was thinking David what what's the let's go back to Washington for a second because he probably only had I don't know what eight agencies, maybe eight departments. We've got what, 400 something. 

David Barton [00:14:43] Cabinet was five. He had five departments. Five. Yeah. 

Rick Green [00:14:46] So he did eight executive orders. So average, you know, one and a half per agency. So if Trump does 600 that would be one and a half per agency. So yeah okay. So he's on about same same average is Washington. 

David Barton [00:14:59] He's on the same rate as what you two that was kind of tells you how much the government has grown since George had it. So, yeah. So that's just we've had a lot of questions you guys pointed out on executive orders. And so that's just a little deeper dive and to kind of what they looked like and where they were and who's done what. Back in the day. So they're not all better than usual. 

Rick Green [00:15:18] Yeah. And I remember Tim's video you made Tim back, I don't know, sometime in January I think it was. And you had a real simple explanation that that stuck with me that, you know, basically if it's if it's an executive or if it's an order telling the executive what to do, it's probably constitutional. If it's an order beyond that, telling other people what to do without Congress passing a law to go do it, it's probably not. I think that's the easiest way to say, okay. Yeah, this sounds okay and this doesn't sound okay, or make it up a totally new law. Like, what was the one Obama did remember how we had welfare to work the past with Clinton? You know, he vetoed it twice. 

Tim Barton [00:15:53] How about amnesty to 5 million illegal immigrants? 

Rick Green [00:15:56] Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. Another example. Yeah. So that to me is outside the scope of what the president has the authority to do for sure. Well, I guess we got more questions coming up. Stay with us. You're listening to the Wallbuilders show. 

Rick Green [00:17:16] Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on The WallBuilders Show it's Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Next question coming from our friend Jim out in Altadena, California, who, by the way, has lost his house in a in the fires and is all his, his monument and his coaching materials and classes and all that. But he's still teaching his classes on this. Guys, you can't stop him even with the fires. Okay. Anyway, Jim had a great question for us about tariffs. He said, I'm listening to some of the news networks. It seems like history is being ignored. Didn't the US survive on tariffs until Woodrow Wilson in the early 1900s achieved taxing individuals? Could you please tell us on one of the Wallbuilders shows, the good, the bad, the ugly about this issue? From a biblical and constitutional perspective, I do understand that we're in different times. We are heavily burdened by taxes on everything these days in California. They're still trying to tax us for rain on our property tax bills. The formula was the square footage of non permeable soil. I mean imagine that guys that your property tax bill would be that detail crazy. Causing runoff and all this. Anyway he said they've tried twice since 2010 but with all our droughts even the lefties rejected it. But couldn't the tariff moneys going toward government expenses allow for a reduction in property taxes? I know that's too simple, but we the people need to be informed of the truth. Thanks for all you do at Wallbuilders, Jim. Thanks for the question. So basically, guys, you know, kind of the history of tariffs, I guess a quick primer on that. And then do you think what what Trump is proposing is a good way to go? 

David Barton [00:18:37] I think what Trump's proposing is a great way to go. However, it will never work to the extent because of the fact that tariffs worked really well for all the early presidents because we didn't have that much spending that was going on. Congress was limited. It was not. And 36, 37 trillion of debt. It didn't fund 400 agencies. It didn't give grants $10 million grants for circumcisions in Mozambique, etc. and as long as you're going to pay for that kind of stuff, you'll never have enough troops to do it. And that's really kind of what the division is on tariffs versus taxes. 

Tim Barton [00:19:10] Well, and really if we said, okay, can we get 10% of the federal budget with tariffs. And if the answer would be yeah, we get 10% with tariffs, then the question is, all right, Dodge, how do we shrink the federal government by 90% so that tariffs can fund the federal government? But, dad, to your point, certainly as you look back, historically, the government wasn't doing all the things were doing. But as far as like the biblical, the constitutional perspective, it actually is something that lines up with the Bible and the Constitution. The first of all, the Bible in Matthew chapter 17, when the the question arises about the temple tax and he Jesus asked Peter, he says, what do you think, Simon? From who to the kings of the earth take customs or taxes from their sons or from strangers. Peter said to him, from strangers. Jesus said to him, the sons, then the sons are free. Nevertheless, as we often go to the sea. Cast the hook. Take a fish. The first fish comes up. When you've opened his mouth. You'll find a piece of money. Take that. Give it to them for me and you. A lot of people know the story of the coin in the fish's mouth, but it's interesting that the build up to it. Jesus literally is asking this seemingly rhetorical, obvious question like, this is crazy, right? We shouldn't have to pay taxes. We're part of this nation. The nation gets the money from taxing the strangers, not from taxing the children that live here. Well, that's whata tariff is that's here. A tariff is taxing those, that would be coming in as opposed to those that are here, and not that there's not a argument for there being a tax, although there's a much better biblical argument for a flat tax for those that live here and tariffs. And if we did the flat tax and tariffs. I think it's biblical and constitutional. But but certainly this idea of tariffs. Is definitely supported by the Bible. And then even ideas of the founding fathers and things we did in earlier America. 

David Barton [00:21:13] Yeah. And the founding fathers, I mean, they lay out not only the fact of tariffs, but they lay out the scope of government. And we've talked before that they only gave 17 enumerated powers to the fed. So there's only 17 things they could do. So let me mention some topics that we should not be paying taxes on for the federal government. And this is where tariffs could carry a lot of stuff. Founding fathers made really clear that when it comes to education, that's not a federal issue. Think of all we spend our education, all the billions we give away in grants on education. We wouldn't do that. Transportation. The only thing the feds can do with transportation is the post roads. Outside of that, all the roads belong to the states. Then place. You don't have place. That's that's local and state stuff. Welfare and social programs all. Think of all the things that would go away and that you wouldn't be paying taxes for, and you could carry with tariffs. And so that's that's how they did for a long time that they had plenty of taxes too. But Tim, as you said, it was taxes really on the foreigners, not on the sons of the perspective of citizens. Now, states had lots of taxes on citizens, but on the federal level, we found things worked pretty well with tariffs. And that's because we had a limited government. So I think the answer to that question is, yeah, tariffs would work well. And the founders did that well. But they also kept a limited government. And if we're not going to do that that's why we see so many more taxes being added on. 

Tim Barton [00:22:39] But from the idea of even what President Trump is doing, what President Trump is doing with tariffs is not unconstitutional. That's right. And arguably it's not unbiblical. And so this is definitely something that at least I would think. You know Dad and Rick you guys can can clarify the opinion. But I would think this is something that we definitely support because it does it does line up with a biblical standard and a constitutional standard as well. So it's not that we think what President Trump is doing is wrong, but it will not. It will not suffice at helping pay all of the bills unless you significantly shrink the size of federal government, which we would also support. 

Rick Green [00:23:16] Yeah, well, maybe he gets his. What did he say? 10 million of these new golden visas that are 5 million apiece. And it raises $35 trillion. And it pays off did y'all see where he said that he's like, oh, that's awesome. Yeah. They're great. So they created. I think I think they're called it the Golden Visa or Gold Visa or whatever. Anyway, it's it's they're literally selling it to. He's basically saying, you know, these will be successful people. You you got this HB one of the visa programs is for people that bring businesses, you know, they come and they they'll do like ten they'll create ten jobs or whatever. And what he was saying was at that program is totally abused. This is just a straight up 5 million bucks, and you still got to go through background check and all that kind of stuff. But he's saying it basically is a high bar and, you know, you're getting somebody that's been successful and they'll bring success to America. I thought that was really interesting. But he did. He threw out that number. I think it was 10 million. He said if we get 10 million people to buy them, that's $35 trillion. We'll pay off the national debt. So maybe we'll do that instead of terrorists. I don't know, but I couldn't agree with you guys more. I think it's, you know, it's perfectly fine to use tariffs. I've always thought we should do more of it on oil and, and some of those things when we were actually importing oil from, you know, countries that are, you know, essentially funneling money to terrorist and, and all of those things like use. Use the tariffs. Now I will tell you guys, my son Trey, who has an economics degree, he disagrees with me totally on this. Like he's anti-tariffs. You know, that's bad economic blah blah. And I guess, you know, maybe he's got a better degree than me because I have a finance degree. But I always thought tariffs could be good. You just had to be careful. And Trump's using it to to negotiate as much as anything. 

Tim Barton [00:24:45] Well yeah. And this is where the difference is when you have nations that are putting a massive tariff on any American product, or they won't even allow American products to be sold in their nation. 

Tim Barton [00:24:56] Yeah. You're just leveling the playing field there, aren't you? 

Tim Barton [00:24:59] That's all it is. And this is to your point, where Trump is using it as a massive negotiation standard and technique. And, you know, like you said with Canada. Very interestingly, very honest when he said, look, you guys are putting a crazy tariff on any American good or service coming in. We're just going to use the same percentage. And I think somebody said that this is what Trudeau said. Well, you know, we couldn't afford to exist if that is the way it happened. And Trump just very honestly said, well, then maybe you should become a state and then there won't be tariffs and you can benefit. Yeah. Right. It wasn't like Trump throwing out this crazy far fetched idea. It's like well this just makes sense. If you can't survive on your own with fair and free trade, which is what the argument is of no tariffs, fair and free trade. But the problem is it's like this environmental deal where people say America should practice all these environmental deals when China's building new coal plants. Like every day, every couple of days, every week, whatever it is, this idea that we're going to handicap ourselves while nobody else is. That doesn't make any economic sense. Even if the idea of fair and free trade is a better idea, as long as the other people are not doing it that way. It doesn't make sense that we do it that way. 

Rick Green [00:26:08] Yeah, it's totally different in a in a textbook discussion, right, of a perfect environment versus the reality that you're in and and being able to, you know, insert these concepts into the playing field that you're or the deck that you've been dealt in. And that's what I think President Trump is very good at, is reading the cards that he's been given and knowing how to throw these things out and get what's best for America. The art of the deal, man. He he does it better than anybody. Great show today, guys. Thanks for answering those questions. We'll get to more of those next week. Radio@walters.com. If you want to send your question in, don't miss tomorrow. A lot of good news to catch up on. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.