Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the Wall Builders Show and it's Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Thanks for joining us today. You can send your questions in by emailing radio@wallbuilders.com, radio@wallbuilders.com. Love hearing from y'all. And you know, it may be a question about the constitution or the founders application of, of the Bible to some of the things that are happening out there, whatever your question might be, we would love to hear from you at radio@wallbuilders.com. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton, and we are looking forward to diving in guys. I'm just going to start peppering you with questions. Here we go. Given the current events, I'm holding with president. 

Tim Barton [00:00:41] I'm sorry, can I interrupt? I do have a question I would like to start with. 

Rick Green [00:00:44] Oh no no no you're not you only get to answer questions Tim you don't get to ask them 

Tim Barton [00:00:49] Well, so obviously we've all seen and heard the news about President Trump maybe doing an executive order to close the department of education. So dad, I'm just curious, um, what did Trump tell you while you were there? Did he talk about this? 

David Barton [00:01:03] Yeah, you know great question actually that subject did not come up when we were in the Oval Office 

Rick Green [00:01:10] Well, we didn't even tell everybody yesterday David that you were gonna actually be with the president when Tim and I were covering the Program without you. We just said he's in DC got some important meetings turns out with the president. 

David Barton [00:01:22] Yeah, it was really cool. It was a very, it was a very cool time. Uh, he was real relaxed and just, you know, friendly and just talking away. It's, but it was two and a half hours, uh, before the president working on policy stuff and then with the president after that, and it was, it was a very memorable time. He is, he is such, I will tell you, he is such a different guy from the first term president. He's just so different. He's a lot more focused. I would say he's a lot more relaxed and a lot more comfortable. And just, he was just so personable and wanted to talk about all sorts of stuff and just chat in many ways. He was relaxed, comfortable, was not pressed or pressured, but man, the line outside is off- and I'll tell you, it was fun. Go, we went in right after Pete Hegseth was there. So secretary of defense. And as we came out, Elon Musk was going in, so it was. It was a pretty good string of folks going through, but it was, yeah, it was pretty remarkable. 

Rick Green [00:02:27] When you say he was relaxed I wonder if that's was your sense that he's he is in the sweet spot like he's in that place that God called him to and he's comfortable with it like not not all the pressure that normally would make someone as president of the United States you know wow you're dealing with all these things and he just what he's where he's supposed to be is that was that your sense or me what what do you think was causing that? 

David Barton [00:02:48] You know, I thought about that. And in some ways, I think he has made the White House into what he was so successful with in business. You know, he ran these billion dollar business kind of things, and he would find the best people to operate them, he would make them accountable, and he would manage very little because he put the best people in there. And so with that, I think he has got the White House now, not like the first term, the White House now, he has put such amazing people in. And he communicates with them so often. They talk so often. I was absolutely amazed at even the email chain of the people on every email to Trump. There's more than 50 individuals on every email, and that's his counsel. And they all talk about everything together, and it's just awesome. 

Tim Barton [00:03:36] And I'm assuming this is what you heard. I'm guessing you probably didn't see the president's emails in his chain. I feel like Secret Service might've. 

David Barton [00:03:45] Yeah, we were with a leader that was at that level, and so just spending time and finding out how things are being operated in the White House was, it seemed to me like he has turned the White House into the efficient operation that he was so known for in business, where that he did so well in business and he seemed to have the Midas touch that anything he touched was profitable and good and worked well and operated and was efficient. And that's what I see there. And he is just very comfortable, in, in that role and he is as busy as he can be, but it's like his sweet spot. It's like, don't throw me in the briar patch for anybody that remembers briar rabbit stories back in the day. That this is what he was made for is what, what it struck me as he was just super comfortable. 

Rick Green [00:04:33] So you're saying he's doing the weave in the flow. That's what that's what I heard. Yeah, he's doing his weave and he's flowing in the weave 

David Barton [00:04:41] That's really a pretty... 

Rick Green [00:04:44] It would be like, and he's confident in his team. That's what you're saying. That confidence in the team that, that you can hand off these massive, like earth shifting projects and, and, uh, and, and orders from him and, and have confidence they're going to go get the job done. 

David Barton [00:04:59] Well, it was like watching Kobe in the finals that wasn't pressure to him. That's what he was made for and he was really good at it. And the more pressure in the game, the higher he, the higher he thrive, more he thrived and responded. And that was really kind of what struck me with Trump is, man, there's, I cannot imagine how much pressure there is with all the countries, all the intelligence he has, all the things going on, all the reports he's getting. And he was just kind of laid back and relaxed and wanted to chat and to talk and it's just. But when it comes time to execute something like get rid of the department of education, you know, he pulls the trigger on that quick. 

Tim Barton [00:05:37] execute something or someone, I heard pulling through quick. 

Rick Green [00:05:41] Hey, he's got no problem with that second one too. They what is he? What did he say? They needed to die like a dog No, he didn't say it that way. But I mean some of these terrorists. He's just like yes, they get Sent them where they needed to go 

David Barton [00:05:53] Well, just like so many national leaders are now rejoicing because they know what his word means, if I was the bad guy, I would be looking for cover on the moon somewhere, of course, that wouldn't work. Elon could get a rocket up to the moon and find you. So they've got ways of tracking you down. But if I was a bad guy, I would, and you know, we've heard that just the last couple of days, Putin has agreed to a ceasefire and isn't it amazing that four years of Biden and then everybody got to talk on that. And here you got less than a hundred days with Trump and we got a ceasefire. Why didn't we stop the war three to four years ago and not spend the billions and billions and billions because we didn't have Trump. It is just such a different sheriff in town right now. It's just such a different ballgame. 

Rick Green [00:06:38] All right. Well, first question from the audience today actually has to do with president Trump, maybe one of those executive orders that, uh, that would have been cool, David, did you get to see him sign any executive orders? I mean, it seems like he signed in one every 20 minutes. So did he take a break from executive orders? 

David Barton [00:06:53] He must have because he didn't sign any while we were there. 

Rick Green [00:06:57] Well, it would have been cool. Um, would have actually though, you know, what is cool. I, you showed it to me on screen. The challenge coin that he gave you. I get these challenge coins for military guys all the time and they're, you know, about the size of a silver dollar. The one you had looked like it was bigger than my face. That was the challenge coin that you got from. 

David Barton [00:07:17] Rick, it wasn't quite that big, but it was, it was, it covers the palm of my hand. So when I, when I have it in my, you know, it's, it's the palm of my hand. It's a little, I guess it's almost wider than my hand, not quite, but it is a massive challenge coin, bro. 

Rick Green [00:07:36] So maybe it was like when you go fishing, you know, and you take the picture and you hold the fish way out in front of you. So it looks bigger. Maybe that's what it was. That's all right. All right. All right. First question of the day. Here we go. Given the current events unfolding with president Trump's executive orders and federal judges issuing injunctions or temporary stays, there are comments from media sources that federal judges and Supreme court justices can be impeached is this true and what does the constitution support? Oh boy, guys, we may not get to a second question. This is going to be 

David Barton [00:08:03] Yeah, you know, actually, Rick, 20 years ago, maybe 25 years ago, we did a book called Impeachment. It was called Impeachment, and it went through the history of judicial impeachments. I think we've retitled it to Restraining Judicial Activism, but it really is the history of impeachments. It goes through the earliest impeachments of judges. There've been more than a hundred investigations of judges for impeachments. I think there've been 17 or 18 impeachment trials. And I think six or eight have been removed from the court, somewhere in those numbers, that's general numbers. So that's something that, yes, the Constitution is very clear on. Maybe one of the most concise summaries of what you can do impeaching a judge is given by Justice Joseph Story, Supreme Court justice. He, I guess, spent more years on the Supreme Court than any other justice to date. He was the youngest justice ever placed on the Supreme Court. James Madison is the one who appointed him. but he did a three-volume set called Commentaries on the Constitution. And as he would go through each clause of the constitution, there are six clauses in the constitution that deal with impeachment. That is the single topic covered most frequently in the U S Constitution is the subject of impeachment. Nothing else has such clauses. And so in covering those clauses, you get a lot of information about impeachment and he makes it very, very, very clear. that you can impeach a judge for virtually anything. He says for political crimes and misdemeanors, you don't have to rape your neighbor or murder your children or rob a bank. If you take what the elected officials consider to be a political stance, you're subject to impeachment. And that's by the guys back at the founding father time. That's what they laid out. And when you look at the first several impeachments, I mean, it clearly is not just criminal stuff. One of the judges was impeached for cussing in the courtroom. They said that's not good behavior for a judge. One of the judges was impeached for being rude to a witness on the witness stand. One of the judges was impeached for getting drunk in private life. They said that's not good behavior. So clearly, the way they're talking today is not correct. 

Tim Barton [00:10:24] And, dad,is worth noting too, as you mentioned, there's been far more investigations than impeachments. There have been far more impeachments than actually removal, but this whole process dealing with judges, when people say that maybe impeachments are for presidents, right? It's not for judges. Well, that's not what the constitution actually says. The constitution, when people think judges have this lifetime appointment and they're untouchable, well, that's absolutely not correct. First of all, it says, That they, a judge can serve for the duration of good behavior. Part of our modern challenges, uh, because we live in an era of subjective morality. We have a hard time defining what's good behavior because it used to be right. I mean, go back to the 1940s and fifties, good behavior, whether we're talking about like a leave it to beaver, the Andy Griffith show, we, we define good behavior very differently than we would define good behavior today. Whereas for many people, cursing is just part of the normal vernacular like that that's not inappropriate and drinking or even drunkenness Things that it used to be very clear would not be identified or condoned as endorsable behavior therefore not good behavior that that standard has changed under the subjective idea but even beyond this notion of of they serve for the duration of good behavior as you point out sometimes it wasn't even just the quote-unquote notion of good behavior from a moral sense Sometimes it could be a political perspective when you look at, for example, the separation of powers that clearly the president has a job has a role as described by the constitution, and if you have a judge that is coming in and overstepping the judicial branches balance and saying, no, we're not going to allow the executor or the executive, in this case, the president to actually carry out the duties given and assigned to him under the constitution for his branch, clearly that is a violation of quote unquote good behavior in a political sense. So maybe not a moral failure, but when you have violated your jurisdictions and your boundaries, we used to have a broader understanding and a much better perspective of this. And so again, going back to impeachment, as you're even mentioning some of the people that were impeached, if you go through the history of impeachments, not everybody that was impeached was actually removed from the bench just like President Trump was impeached and was not removed from office, right, you can go through some of this and see that there can be some political trials that happen. And when it ultimately goes to the Senate for the deliberation, there's not enough to convict them of wrongdoing. However, the idea that Trump's thing, a judge should be impeached. It certainly is something that should be and could be investigated. And if it is determined that this judge was doing something purely for political reasons because he disagreed with the political position, not because it was in fact unconstitutional. That is a violation of good behavior, quote unquote, as the Constitution identifies, from a political perspective, and therefore absolutely could fall under the idea of impeachment. 

David Barton [00:13:26] You know, one of the things that happened back, I don't know, it's some years back, but we worked with a number of members in Congress who happened to be on Judiciary Committee about impeaching judges. And they were wanting to know about it because you had a lot of judicial activism going back then and what do you do and how do you impeach? And so what we found in the study was the more frequently you have impeachment investigations, the less frequently you have to impeach judges. And it goes back to something that Thomas Jefferson said. where he talked about impeachment was a scarecrow. You know what a scarecrow is, you put it out there to scare the bad things away, whether it be crows in the cornfield or whatever, and that's what impeachment was supposed to be, was a scarecrow. 

Tim Barton [00:14:10] Hey dad, let me, let me pause for a second because I do feel like a lot of the modern era growing up scarecrow is like a character from a Batman movie, right? Most people did not grow up probably farming. There's definitely people right now in the Midwest listening to us that know exactly what we're talking about. Most people probably don't, but back in the day, if you were growing crops and you wanted to keep certain birds from coming and eating all of your vegetables, eating from whatever crop you were growing and developing. You could put up a scarecrow and of course, I imagine everybody's probably seen an image of it. If not, you can certainly look it up. It looked like there was a man out there in the middle of the field, right? There was this stick figure and the clothes on, I mean, stuffed the clothes with straw, whatever. And it was to keep the birds away. But the idea was it was just something to try to scare the birds away or scare whatever way that might come in and eat the vegetables or whatever you're growing, you didn't want it to eat. And I'm not trying to be condescending to anybody listening. I just know that unless you're familiar with like the Wizard of Oz. 

Rick Green [00:15:13] That's what I was thinking when you said it. 

Tim Barton [00:15:15] Right. Then, you know, probably most people have not seen scarecrows, at least for my generation. Now I'm not trying to get into your generation and how much y'all saw growing up, but for my generation, that was not the norm. 

David Barton [00:15:28] So with that description, think of that, and that's what impeachment is. If you, if you raise the specter of impeachment, if you have an impeachment investigation, it's like putting that stuffed man out in the field to scare away the birds that might come and otherwise eat things they shouldn't be eating. It's a way of letting the judges know that you are accountable. And if you get outside the boundaries of what's considered to be acceptable, you will end up being a public name in front of this body. We will have impeachment investigation against you and that's not good for your career. And so that's the, that's the one of the things we helped understand back then. And literally at that time they started looking at impeaching several judges because it is a way of sending a message to judiciary that you guys are not the, the be all end all the U S constitution is. And if you don't interpret it correctly, or if you try to infuse something into it that's not part of the constitution, we're going to hold you accountable. And if that means taking you off the bench... We're not gonna let you try to undermine the constitution because you have a political view. And so Rick, with that judge that you mentioned, and you and I had, what, two, three days ago, we covered this on a program when Tim was off on that particular session, and we talked about the fact that what happened was Trump said, oh, I'm so sorry. I've already sent those guys to El Salvador, and there's just nothing your judicial decree has that can affect anything outside of US airspace. And, you know, it was like, it's just a good way for Trump to dismiss him is what it was. But what happened is Trump said that that guy should be impeached. If you're going to stop criminals, if you're going to stop the president from prosecuting criminals who are not US citizens, and if you're going to stop the president from exporting illegal aliens who are here who are doing mischief, you ought to be impeached because you're not upholding anything. Related to what the constitution says or does. And so what happened was justice, chief justice Roberts came out with a statement, pretty much scolding Trump and said, Oh, you, you, you can't say that. You, you got the statement, Rick. Once you read that statement, this is, this is 

Rick Green [00:17:36] Typical of the judicial branch. I mean, I'll tell you how much the legal community hates impeachment. I didn't know any of this, David, until we did, you know, I started, you wrote the impeachment book and then we did Constitutional Alive and we started talking about this, none of this was covered in law school. I mean, they avoid this discussion like the plague because it means having some accountability in the judicial branch and you mentioned the the scarecrow, I always think of one of the quotes you taught me out of the Federalist Papers and I was looking it up as Federalist 65, where Hamilton calls it a bridle in the hands of the legislature. And you being a horse guy, I know you love that one as well. It's a bridle in the hands of the legislature, literally allowing you to rein in bad actors, whether they're executive branch, judicial branch, wherever they're coming from. If they're a bad actor being acting unconstitutionally, this is a bridle for the legislature. to rein them in, well, you know, the judiciary doesn't want to be reined in. So here's what, here's what chief justice Roberts said about what president Trump has said about impeachment. Robert says, all right, for more than two centuries, this is chief justice John Robertson responsive to, to president Trump and others saying that this judge should be impeached, he says for more than two centuries, it's been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision, the normal appellate review process exists for that purpose. And what he's saying is we don't want anybody else to tell us what to do. We get to decide this all in the judiciary and no outside the judiciary. So you guys respond to Robert's when we come back, you're listening to the Wallbuilder Show. 

Rick Green [00:20:20] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. We're right in the middle of this discussion about what Chief Justice Roberts has said in response to President Trump and others calling for impeachment of a judge who, who did act unconstitutionally guys. I mean, he was literally violating the whole concept of positive exception, which is article three, where the Congress can take issues away from, from the courts. And that's what they did with this whole alien act. They said, Hey, this is a job for the president. This is not reviewable by the courts. And this judge basically said. I'm going to make it reviewable. I'm going to tell the president what to do, which means he's violating his jurisdiction, like you were talking about earlier, David. 

David Barton [00:20:55] Yeah, it is a thing of accountability. And this is one of the things I have yet to understand fully why the left and judges on the left are so intent on stopping the protection of U.S. citizens and protecting the rights of criminals more than the rights of citizens. And that just, there's no way I can read the Constitution and come to that position. Everybody in the world is not a citizen of the United States. The Constitution applies to the citizens of the United States. It does not apply, we don't provide the rights of justice and due process to every criminal that's an illegal alien. We do it for American citizens, but not others. And it's just crazy for judges to do that. 

Tim Barton [00:21:41] And to be clear on this too, because some people would argue, maybe try to counter against it and say, wait a second, but don't you believe in an alienable rights? And if there's God given rights, that means everybody in the world has God given rights. And that's absolutely correct. Everybody in the world has God given rights. It's not the job of America to protect everybody else's God-given rights. It is the job of the American government to protect the American's God-given rights. It's the job of Germany to protect the German's God-given rights. It's the rights of Italy to protect the Italian's God-given rights, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The role of the government, of our government, is to secure and defend our God-given right, not to let someone from another country come and violate and infringe on or take away God-given rights. And certainly, that would be the right to life, which we're seeing under attack because of what's happened with the fentanyl crisis, and terrorists coming across the southern border, etc., etc., the right to liberty, where we're seeing literally people's freedoms being threatened by the fact there's criminals on the streets and so we can't go over where we want to go. I mean, we can go down this list. The government is failing to protect Americans' God-given rights. And Dad, as you're pointing out, they are sacrificing Americans' rights and freedoms on the altar of the elevated immigrant status, illegal immigrant status, right, oftentimes even terrorist status that we are saying their rights are more important than the fundamental and animal rights of every American, and that is a travesty and certainly contrary to the very role of American government. 

Rick Green [00:23:15] And it's just crazy that a judge would take that and use that as a reason to go do something outside their boundaries and tell the president he cannot do it. I mean, the American people are going, wait a minute, these are rapists and murderers and gang members. The president's taking them out of the country and the Democrats are doing everything they can to do what? To stop the president from getting these people out of our country. It's just crazy. 

David Barton [00:23:37] Let's go a step further, Rick, because you've got the same thing going on with accountability in the executive branch. Who's in charge of the executive branch? The executive is. And he's found all these officials that are undermining or they're incompetent or they're wasting money or spending it. And he says, I'm not going to have that in my executive branch. You're fired. And the judges say, no, no, no, you can't fire people. Thanks for watching! In what scenario, now certainly not in God's world, are you in any scenario where you'll never be held accountable? God always makes clear that accountability is there for every single individual. We all will have to account for him, for what we say, for what we think, for what we do, for how we behave. And somehow, that principle of accountability that is throughout the Constitution, which is why you have three branches with checks and balances, that's to make every branch accountable. Now you got federal judges saying, no, no, no, no. If you're in the executive branch and you're doing what we like, then you can't be held accountable and we're gonna make Trump rehire all of you. How can you ever shrink the size of government? How can you ever limit the government and get back to where the states are supposed to do what they're doing? You can't do that if you're having judges overrule the executive in charge of his own branch. I mean, imagine if IBM or if Elon's Tesla or anything else. If judges... told him who he could and could not hire and fire and what they could and could not that would be the most inefficient car company or inefficient any company if judges took it over and that's what they're doing to the federal government. And then by the way just to make sure people don't understand we're not throwing the judiciary under the bus this is what's called form shopping. These guys that are bringing the suits know which judges to bring this in front of and most of this stuff is going to get overturned as it works its way up. Uh, this is not what most judges believe, but you always find the judicial activists and get your case to them so that they can stop everything you don't like, and it's called forum shopping. Uh, so this is something that I think is going to end. I don't think the people are behind this and at least what I've seen, except for the loud mouth progressives, most people are not supporting president Trump, not being able to reduce the size of government and the limits and the reach of government. It's an interesting time for sure, but judiciary is now back in focus, which it needs to be. 

Rick Green [00:25:59] All right, guys, I am no prophet. However, I'm kind of like my grandfather. He could smell the rain coming. And it was like, he had, he could just smell, you know, there was a scent in the air and he's like, there's going to be rain later today or in 20 minutes or whatever it was when I read that question, I could smell the time slipping away and that we would only get to one question. That's why I said we may not even get to another. Well, I was right. We didn't get to another question because it was so good. We could do, we could do a whole program. In fact, maybe we ought to call it Constitution Alive or biblical citizenship in modern America. Folks can get that right now at wallbuilders.com. We dive deeply into this very question. In fact, we walk through how impeachment's like an indictment and you still got to get conviction. Those things that Tim was talking about. You want to learn more about that? Go to wallbuilders.com today and get you a good constitution class. Thanks for listening on foundations of freedom Thursday. You've been listening to the WallBuilders Show.