“The nationwide injunction thing has really gotten out of control,” First Liberty Institute executive general counsel Hiram Sasser tells Glenn. The Trump administration has been hit with injunction after injunction, in which individual unelected judges have tried to tell the President of the United States what to do. So, how can we stop this judicial overreach and lawfare? Sasser tells Glenn that there are only 2 institutions that can fix this problem: the Supreme Court and Congress.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Hiram Sasser is with us. First Liberty executive general counsel on the judiciary. Last night, I showed you some of the names and organizations that are funding this judicial coup against Trump. And that is exactly what it is.
And it is well-orchestrated, well-planned, and well-funded. What do we do about it? Hiram, welcome to the program.
HIRAM: Hey, thanks for having me.
GLENN: You bet. So last night I kind of went through these, and it's sickening to see how well-planned this is, and it has nothing to do with anything, other than thwarting Donald Trump and his agenda.
It doesn't have anything to do with the actual law or anything else.
These are the same people that were planning for his impeachment, before he took president the first time!
HIRAM: You know, what I always find amazing is that everybody thinks this is like a practice, right? We get to run our plays. And there will be no opponent on the other side. I mean, there's a team on the other side.
They're very smart and they're very well organized. And they work very hard for the things that they believe in.
So we have to work doubly hard.
Look, the nationwide injunction thing has really gotten out of control in the 20th century. And sort of kind of emerged in the '60s. He had a few here and there. I think couple against President Reagan. A few against President Clinton.
GLENN: By this time. By this time in Biden's administration, there were only three.
There's like 159 now.
HIRAM: Well, that's right.
They really ramped up -- which is fascinating, by the way, Glenn. Is that the left complained about nationwide injunctions. When they were -- you know, basically, 14 of them, were applied to the Biden administration.
GLENN: Uh-huh.
HIRAM: What people don't understand, really is that there's only two -- there's only two institutions that can fix this problem.
Nationwide injunctions. Either the Supreme Court will have to put an end to it.
Which they can. Or Congress will have to put an end to it.
Which they can. But there's no way, really, from a legal standpoint, to get to one of those. One of those two inflection points.
What I think is very, very critical is.
If you look at Judge Kacsmaryk, for example. When he enjoined the FDA's approval, of -- of -- of abortion drugs. One of the things that he did, was he actually halted his order, for a week. To allow for an emergency appeal by the United States.
And what the judge was doing, turn the planes around. I mean, that's -- that's beyond the pale. He -- even with the power to issue a nationwide injunction. A judge should give the government the opportunity to do an emergency appeal, in order to be able to have somebody else bring the papers. And unfortunately, this isn't about the rule of law. This is about trying to control the policy. And that's the big problem.
GLENN: Right.
You know, the left cheered when Joe Biden didn't just go against the district court.
He went against the Supreme Court.
And said, well, they told me, I couldn't spend this money.
Which is clearly unconstitutional. And, you know, we're just going to give all these refunds. And pay all these people's school bills.
He couldn't do that. And then when Supreme Court came out, and said, I will just find another way to do it.
He did it over and over and over again.
I don't have a problem. If you are violating the Constitution.
If President Trump is violating the Constitution, that is the Supreme Court's job to say, hang on!
You can't do that. It is not the district court's place, to stop an administrator from doing administrative work.
It is the Supreme Court's place. And, I mean, I suppose, you as a district judge could get involved.
I don't think you should. At least at this kind of level.
That they are. You know, no district court said, hey. You have to turn the Enola Gay around.
No. The president. That's his responsibility to do that.
Not court!
Congress, yes!
Not a court. How far out of control is all of this? Just to put it into perspective for the average person.
HIRAM: Well, look, what's going on is you have one judge issuing an injunction against the entire United States government. That -- that is embodied in the power of one man. The only person who is elected by the entire nation, and the entire executive branch is housed in one person and the people that that person decides to employ. In order to -- in order to effectuate policy. Then you have this one district court judge. Not elected by everybody. Who is telling that person what to do.
Look, what really needs to happen is the Supreme Court needs to put a clamp on this. And -- and at the very least, all of these decisions, they need to be -- they need to be put on ice. Until they go to the US Supreme Court, for the final resolution. Now, if the court says, hey. I agree with that why.
That's fine.
That's the Supreme Court.
Then Congress can step in, and fix it.
That's where the rubber meets the road.
That -- and the left, maybe they complained. Remember, during the Biden administration, it's all about forum shopping (phonetic). Do you remember the discussions?
GLENN: Oh, yeah, remind people.
HIRAM: Yeah. Look, all the left complained about is, well, any time anyone wants to sue the Biden administration, you know, they go to Texas! You know, and they go find some district court judge in Texas.
Well, I've noticed that. I have noticed that none of the people on the left, they're suing the Trump administration. Their cases are in Texas, right?
They're going to go find their judges.
And here's the fascinating part.
You remember all those attacks on judges?
I mean, Judge Kacsmaryk in Amarillo had a billboard, just outside his neighborhood. That reminded his kid of what a horrible person he is. All right?
GLENN: I remember that.
HIRAM: And you don't see -- I never saw the Federal Judge's Association issue a statement, the judicial independence, of Judge Kacsmaryk. And that's why the Judge Ho actually resigned recently. Circuit Judge Ho resigned from the federal judge's administration. Because he basically couldn't stand.
What he said, was he couldn't stand hypocrisy of what was going on, with the fact that they now issued a statement, trying to defend independence of the judiciary.
Because, you know, all this rhetoric about all these judges are -- that's a threat to judicial independence.
The hypocrisy runs thick here.
The left is against injunctions, until they're for them.
They're against judicial independence, until they need it.
They are -- they are constantly switching sides, just because it's a fight about power.
And whatever gives them the power.
So look, bottom line is this. It's up to Congress.
There's a bill in front of Congress. They're debating it now.
Hopefully, that they can address nationwide injunction. Look, Glenn, one thing I will say is this: When we represented Navy SEALs to sue the United States Navy because of the COVID vaccine mandate, violating their religious -- their religious objections to taking the vaccine. We had Navy SEALs.
We didn't do a nationwide injunction at First Liberty. We actually did the right thing. We filed a class-action lawsuit.
We followed all the rules of filing class-action lawsuit. And that's how we were able to win. We defeated the Navy. There is a way to do this right, getting rid of nation-wide injunctions is not going to hamper everybody.
Everybody can do it the way we did it at First Liberty, and still win.
GLENN: Yeah. I'll tell you. But you know and I know, it's not about winning. This is just about destruction. This is just about hobbling this administration, so he can't get anything done. They'll just keeping moving on from one another. They've already planned I think another 100 lawsuits by the end of the year. He hasn't done anything yet!
And they've already, yeah. You know, wait until you see what's coming next fall.
What? What are you talking about?
How are you planning on these lawsuits, in advance?
HIRAM: Look, it's called lawfare. The left has always been better at it. Have you noticed, they have to attack, the left has to attack the Supreme Court.
You know, we had to come out in great defense, judicial independence. You know, the left loves judicial independence for their district court judges. But they never talk about it for the Supreme Court. They don't mind the protesters, outside Justice Kavanaugh's house.
You know, with his daughters like looking out the window to see people chanting, death to their dad, right?
The rest of the does not care about the attacks to the Supreme Court.
Because they don't believe that they own the Supreme Court anymore.
You go back in time. When the left had a strange hold on the US Supreme Court.
You go back 20 years.
Oh. Oh. Oh. The American Bar Association.
They tell you, all they ever talk about was judicial independence. All they ever talked about was defending the judiciary. Look, it's not about principle for the left.
It's just about power. And on our side, we have -- we have fought principally, and with principles, in order to try to advance the mission that we want to advance in court.
And it's time that the Supreme Court put a clamp town on some of the nonsense. Or Congress.
One of those two will have to do it.
GLENN: Hiram, thank you so much. Hiram Sasser, he is the First Liberty Institute executive general counsel.
You can find their website. And support them. FirstLiberty.org or on X at First Liberty.
