Judging Freedom - Chris Hahn (The Aggressive Progressive): Where Are the Dems on Trump?

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Chris Hahn (The Aggressive Progressive): Where Are the Dems on Trump?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, February 11th, 2025. We have a new guest today, Chris Hahn, with whom I had the pleasure of working when I was at Fox News. Chris runs a fabulous podcast called The Aggressive Progressive. But first this. He's been president for a day and a half and I am already exhausted by him. Let me just make this point perfectly clear to you, Mr. President, because I know you watch. You are 100% responsible for any action these people take for the rest of their lives.

You don't harm somebody, murder somebody, trunk drive, whatever they do. You will be held responsible, particularly while you're president. I don't know what their plan is to replace that. Is it a bigger army? Because dollar for dollar, you're talking about, you know, 10 times the cost of USAID. If we have to protect that power as actual military power, it would bankrupt the United States of America. He sometimes rattles the saber and then pulls back and claims victory, even if he doesn't get everything he wants. Chris Hahn, welcome here, my dear friend. Where are you? There you are.

I am. I'm on Long Island. I know you're in New Jersey, I think so. Yeah, I'm actually in New York City at the moment, but it's a pleasure to see you, my dear friend. I miss all of our times together. Chris was a Democrat hired by Fox, a good Democrat, according to Fox. And we became friends when I was there. It was Fox that gave me the name, the aggressive progressive, because they had two types there, some that would just roll over and die, and some who would fight for every yard, and I was one of the fight for every yard Democrats.

Indeed you were, but in a pleasant way, which is how you and I hit it off so well. So, Chris, do the Democrats, unlike the first time, now take Donald Trump seriously? Oh, I don't know how we cannot take him seriously, right? He has been telling us for the last four years what he's going to do. He had a plan. It was called Project 2025. He tried to distance himself from it. I think he effectively distanced himself from it during the campaign.

But if you look at what's been going on, it's right out of that playbook. He's got people who understand government far better now than they did eight years ago when he first took office. And I think Democrats are a little flat footed in their response so far. But you know what? It's only been a couple of weeks. The average voter isn't feeling the impact of anything Trump's done yet. And I think that's really what it's going to take to start seeing real pushback because you're going to need more than just Democrats right now. They don't have the majority of anything. You're going to need a few, you know, governing class Republicans, if you will, who, you know, have a traditional view of the Republican Party to kind of get involved. But why aren't Democrats like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren or even mainstream Democrats like

Chris Coons or Chris Murphy, Cory Booker, yelling and screaming, you can't avoid a section of the 14th Amendment that you don't like. You just took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the whole Constitution, whether you agree with it or not. I agree. Look, they've all expressed the opinion that he is not able to do it, right? But I think that the Democrats are victims of their own campaigns. We have spent so much time warning the American people about Donald Trump and saying he is, you know, Satan incarnate. He's the antichrist that the American people don't

believe that anymore. They don't want to hear it. They didn't want to hear it at the end of the Harris campaign. They surely aren't going to hear it right now. Um, so while Democrats are saying it and they're fighting it in the courts, and I believe they will be victorious in the courts, whether or not Donald Trump abides by the court, that's another question. But, you know, it is something that I think being, you know, amplified over it and being hysterical in your response is not going to win the American people over. Are the Democrats as outraged as we libertarians are when he tries to do things that only the Congress can do? For example, I don't believe there should be a Department of Education. I'm going to guess you believe there

should, because in my view, it's not authorized by the Constitution. You get that. Right. He can't shut it down by himself. The legislation is there and the appropriation is there. Only Congress could close a federal executive department. And yet he's trying to shut it down by himself. Shouldn't the Democrats take to the floor of the Senate where they can talk about anything they want for as long as they want and denounce this? They have and they should. They should read Federalist 51 every single day from the floor of the Senate. And they should remind their fellow colleagues in the Senate that, you know, ambition needs to counteract ambition or we will have a monarchy in this country. That's what the founders intended. They wanted every senator to look

in the mirror and say, wow, I could be president someday and then go to the floor of the Senate and fight that president when the president was overstepping the authority that the constitution gave them. And clearly shutting down the department of of Education, to me, is overstepping that authority. Shutting down USAID and not spending the money that Congress appropriated for that purpose is overstepping. I don't agree with everything USAID does, but it is the law, and the legislation is there, and the president can't not spend money that Congress has appropriated. Some of these appropriations go back to when he signed them five years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I mean, look, I think everybody can agree that government can be run more efficiently. And if Elon Musk and his

band of young engineers can find a more efficient way to do what Congress has told the president he must do. Good. Let them do that. But that's not what they're doing. What they are doing is exactly what Musk did when he took over Twitter and other companies. He's taking an ax to it, seeing what's going to work down the road. And if he's got to bring people back, he'll bring people back. You can't really do that with federal programs. And really USAID, we might not like some of the things USAID does, but dollar for dollar, it is an effective use of American power abroad.

It's cheaper than paying troops to go there and kill people. Right. 100%. I get it. I get it. I get it. My argument is the constitutional one. The president can't impound funds and he can't pick and choose which laws to enforce. In fact, if you read the presidential oath, it says, well, enforce the laws faithfully. They actually argued over that oath and Madison insisted the word faithfully put in there so that he couldn't pick and choose which laws or which parts of the Constitution to comply with. A hundred percent. And you and I are in full agreement on that. And look, I think the courts are going to be in full agreement on that. I think when it gets to the Supreme Court, it'll be a. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. There's a very famous graduate of Yale Law School who recently said, if you don't like what a judge says, just characterize it as unlawful and you don't have think that, you know, he is going to be proven wrong by the courts.

The question is, does the president then ignore the courts? And when the president ignores the courts, what does the Congress do? And this Congress right now, I have no faith that the majority in the House and the Senate would do anything to protect the power that the Constitution gave them. I don't think they'll do anything. They'll roll over for this president because they are so afraid of what he will do to them politically. I make this point all the time on my podcast, Judge. I don't understand why you run for Congress. I don't understand why you run for the United States Senate. If you are not going to effectively wield the power of a United States Senator, and the major point of the Senate is to

be a check on the presidency. And if you're not going to do that, you are ignoring 249 years of history in this country where we've had a balance of power that has kept us from becoming a monarchy because the president is- All the more reason. What you've said is 100% correct in my view, Chris. This is bizarre that we're agreeing on so many things, but I'm happy for it for you and for me and for the audience. Yeah. We're America, thank God. Why don't we Trump now?

Why, if he wants to get rid of the Department of Education, wants to get rid of USAID, wants to get rid of all these other things that Musk wants to cut, propose legislation now during his honeymoon period while he has control of both houses of Congress and let Congress do it lawfully. He probably could get rid of the Department of Education right now if he wanted to. He probably has the votes to do that. The question is, what are you going to do about the programs they manage? And look, when the Department of Education was created in the 1970s, there was debate about taking a lot of the things they did away from health and human services. Some people wanted students to be treated for their whole body and their whole health of not just their mental health, their educational health, but their physical health as well. There's a debate to be had.

Have the debate, right? Because 10 months from now, you won't be able to get anything passed, Mr. President. You know, it is not something that's going, you know, your honeymoon is now. Your numbers are never going to be better than they are now. Your loyalty from Congress is never going to be better than it is now.

And you become lamer and lamer every day that passes by. Right. I mean, that's why that's why on Super Bowl Sunday, he couldn't say that J.D. Vance is his successor. He doesn't want to talk about his successor yet. But guess what? The media loves to cover the horse race because it's easy. Yeah. Yeah. When did the Democrats first discover President Biden's mental deficiencies? I first fully discovered it when he debated, but I was suspicious of it. But I kept talking to my friends in Washington. You saw him every day. Yeah. Look, I didn't see him every day.

I'm mad at people who saw him every day. Right. I think that they should have gotten him out of the race right after the midterms. He should have said, I had a successful midterm, spiked the football. Let's have a real contest to see who's going to succeed me. I think Democrats would be better off. I think the nation would be better off right now if they'd done that. Why weren't Democrats outraged generally as progressives and libertarians have been over the slaughter in Gaza funded by the United States government? I think a lot of people are outraged, right? Now, where were they when Joe Biden was doing this?

Where were they now when Trump stopped it? I will tell you, here's my dilemma. I agree that Israel has a right to defend itself. But I also believe that democracies have an added layer of responsibility when it comes to how they wage war. And they need to wage war in a way that is more responsible and doesn't displace people and doesn't kill innocents. And in the past, when Israel would be attacked by Hamas, they would do surgical strikes on their leaders and they would knock them out. And they've shown that they could do that. I mean, we could disagree about what happened with Hezbollah and the Pager attack, but it

showed that the Israelis had the capacity and the ability to do targeted strikes on Hamas' leadership, which they chose not to do. Instead, Netanyahu, who I think stinks, chose to give in to the hardliners who were part of his coalition, because his coalition was crumbling at that time, and just basically go full bore, total war against Hamas, which I think as a democracy is irresponsible. I don't think Israel is a democracy. I mean, I'm Catholic. I couldn't vote if I were there. And if I were Palestinian, I couldn't vote and I couldn't own land there. That's not a democracy. That's a form of apartheid. I guess you're right. Look, I couldn't argue with you at all about that,

but to the extent it is a democracy and they, you know, they try to portray themselves as a democracy, uh, they need to be more responsible. And in the past they have been, they have been much more responsible. What do Democrats think of this? And I'll express my view in the question. No surprise to you. Absolutely absurd idea of president Trump that we will buy and own the Gaza Strip. Yeah, Trump-Gaza, right? They think it's ridiculous. They think it will never happen.

They think it would cost us, you know, 200,000 permanently stationed troops in that part of the world, which no American is going to go for. No Republican is going to go for. What is Trump distracting us from by making this request? Well, that is a very good question. That's what I want to know. Do you think he is flooding the field, so to speak,

to distract us from something else? He signed 200 executive orders in three weeks. Yeah. I mean, look, again, very easy to talk about Trump's crazy plan in Gaza, which will never happen. Harder to talk about the 200 executive orders, harder to talk about why Tulsi Gabbard should not be the DNI or why Kash Patel shouldn't be the head of the FBI. You know, so there's, you know, he knows what he's doing, doing. Donald Trump's a lot of things, a lot of things that I don't like, but what he is good at is television. He understands media. He understands what gets

people talking, what gets people motivated, and he gives it to us every single day. And I have been trying, and Chris will tell tell you i have a hard time not always chasing you know the the rabbit that trump puts out there for us to chase every day uh but i'm trying real hard not to but the media is has not been successful at it and this is where you outraged and i only heard this outrage i mean obviously follow every democrat but i really only heard this outrage, I mean, obviously I didn't follow every Democrat, but I really only heard it from AOC and her buddies at the utter contempt that Joe Biden had for the human rights of Palestinians. Yes. You know, look, I don't like to see people chased from their homes. I don't like to see people sick and bombed and scared.

I believe that everyone deserves a chance at, you know, life, liberty and happiness. Right. Even if they're Palestinians. Right. The Declaration of Independence doesn't say we get our rights because we're lucky to be born in the United States of America. We get our rights from the creator. Right. That means everybody has those rights. Everyone in this world has those rights. And it doesn't mean they have a right to be here in America or anywhere else, but they do have a right to life, liberty, and happiness. And to see people chased from their homes with utter, you know, with no regard definitely bothered me.

But again, I'm conflicted because Hamas, what Hamas did was horrible. And Israel did have a right to retaliate. I just think that the way they did it was not, I think it could have been done the way they've always done it. I think they're probably going to be more effective if they had. And maybe the hostages would be back right now if they would have pursued this in a way that Israel normally pursues it. You know, this hostage thing is very complex and frustrating. The ceasefire deal that Netanyahu reluctantly agreed to and that Hamas accepted, which was actually offered by

Joe Biden seven months ago. But the one that they signed was negotiated by Steve Witkoff, by Trump's guy. It calls for hostages to be released in segments. Yesterday, Trump said, I don't like them being released in dribs and dribs. I want them all released on Saturday. Well, this is his own agreement. Yeah, he said it again. He said it again an hour ago, by the way, Judge. He just said it again in front of the King of Jordan. Yeah.

Yeah. It's I think, you know, Trump has basically given Hamas talking points to recruit right between his, you know, plan to take over Gaza. You know, release the hostages or we're going to release the hounds of hell uh yeah it's his own deal we've been talking points christian netanyahu who said a few minutes ago if the hostages aren't released on saturday at noon without saying whether even the three that the agreement calls for, or all, as Trump said and re-said, as you said a few minutes ago, we will re-enter the Gaza Strip.

So nobody believes in these ceasefires. Not the people who signed it, Netanyahu, not the person who negotiated it and wrote it. Trump. Yeah. No, it's despicable. And Netanyahu. Look, I don't know how Netanyahu's government has survived the last year and a half. And I don't know how Netanyahu survives when this peace deal falls apart or this truce deal falls apart.

I don't know how he survives. And I think it's better for everybody that he's gone. Where are the Democrats on shipping 30,000 people to Guantanamo Bay because they are undocumented? I want to know how much that's going to cost. What are we going to cost a lot in human liberty and human rights. I agree. This whole plan to get rid of, you know, millions of people from this country, what are we spending this? You know, they're cutting USAID, and now we're going to spend that money

to round people off and fly them to Guantanamo Bay. First of all, Guantanamo Bay should have been disassembled, you know, a decade ago. The fact that it's still there is a failure from both, you know, Republicans and Democrats. And it's it's ridiculous to me that it still exists. So I am you know, I haven't I haven't really gone round and round on with with my cop, my former colleagues on this. But I will tell you, I am outraged by it. And I'm outraged by the waste of capital. The Secretary of Homeland Security, another department of the federal government not authorized by the Constitution. We can discuss that at another time on Sunday

on Fox News Sunday. Secretary Christie known Chris cut number 10. The government cannot attempt to subvert the statutory and constitutional rights afforded to these non-citizens in the U.S. by transferring them to an offshore prison and holding them incommunicado without access to counsel or any means of contact with the outside world. First of all, can you speak to whether that is an accurate characterization? And what do you say in response to their claims about legal rights for these folks? You know, that's just bull. And I just wish they would grow up and really recognize what we're doing here. Literally, these cartels are partnering with the Chinese to kill our next generation of

Americans. That's who we're putting down there at Gitmo. And I'm just so thankful that they're not in our country anymore. The one that doesn't give a damn about the Constitution. I didn't want to want to address that every human being restrained by the government citizen or non-citizen enemy or a friend because of that restraint is entitled to legal counsel. Uh, again, for 75 years, rights come from God. They don't come from where you're born and, uh, and they have rights and they have rights to counsel. And some of these people are here under asylum procedures and they have rights there. Some people have been accused of crimes. Maybe they committed them. Maybe they didn't. Either way, there's a process and procedure in the United States of America and they are entitled to counsel.

This Lakin Riley Act that the Congress just passed and Trump signed into law allows deportation on the basis of an allegation. Yeah. I mean, that's not a violation of the fifth amendment, which requires due process and allegation. Anybody can make an allegation against somebody else. Yeah. I mean, when does that, where does it end? Right. It's a slippery slope when you start talking about, you know, allegations can be used against people. Where does it end? You could put a, make an allegation against your political opponent. And if we have some sort of law that allows allegations to have people, uh, you know, imprisoned or have their liberty denied, uh, you know, this is a slippery slope and I, you know, I don't get it. I do get it. Uh, I get that, uh, fear is a powerful motivator in politics.

And fear is also what gets people to give up their own liberty. And that's what's going on here. It is not just the migrants that are going to lose their liberty. Eventually, they're going to use this fear to take away liberty from everyone. And we better be very, very careful what we're doing here. Chris, if the good folks and I'm fortunate, I am fortunate that there are a lot of them that watch Judging Freedom, want to watch the aggressive progressive, where do they go? It's at the aggressive progressive on YouTube. And I am at Christopher Hahn on X and at Christopher Hahn on blue sky. If they happen to be there, uh,

you know, at the aggressive progressive on YouTube, that's my new home, uh, for my video stream of my podcast. Uh, if you want to see this ugly mug talking, uh,

please, please come. Well, I've enjoyed your mug. It's like the old days, having these conversations with you. Well, we could never your mug. It's like the old days, having these conversations with you. By the way, we could never have had a conversation like this at Fox. Well, we had a few.

We didn't have this much time, and they would be furious that you and I were agreeing on everything. Well, you know, I remember the first time I came on your show, you had just left the bench. You just started doing the show. I was like 35, And I started throwing the constitution at you. And you looked at me and go, you want to argue the constitution with me? Fabulous, Chris. Love it. God bless you all the best in your work. And maybe you'll come back and visit us again. Anytime, Judge. Thanks for having me on board. Sure. Pleasure, my man. Well, what a fascinating

conversation with a friend with whom I hadn't spoken in a while. A busy afternoon at two o'clock, Matt Ho, at three o'clock, Karen Kwiatkowski, at four o'clock, the always worth waiting for Colonel Douglas McGregor, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.