Events Director:: Discuss constitutional norms under President Trump. The DPU is proud to host Michael Knowles and Mehdi Hassan. Founded in 2018, the Dartmouth Political Union is Dartmouth's pre-eminent non-partisan, student-led political organization, dedicated to fostering open discourse and challenging preconceptions. To this end, we host speakers from across the political spectrum, organize both student and expert debates, and hold campus-wide discussions on the issues that matter most. Our event tonight is the eighth in a series of expert debates, the DPU Debate Series: Critical Discourse in the Age of Disagreement. This series puts into conversation some of the most pressing and controversial topics facing our nation, promoting respectful discourse and controversial and challenging preconceptions. This series was brought to campus with the support of the Office of the President and Dartmouth Dialogues. Tonight's event would not have been possible without the support of our donors and the office of student life, particularly President Bailock and Assistant Dean McKenna. Thank you. Before introducing our moderator and our debaters tonight, I'd like to share the results of a poll conducted with the in-person audience following the mock debate format. In response to the question, Has President Trump upheld the Constitution? 22% of you responded you believe that President Trump has indeed upheld the Constitution, whereas 78% of you believe that President Trump has not. Today we are joined by Michael Knowles and Mehdi Hasan. Michael Knowles is the celebrated host of the Michael Knowles Show at The Daily Wire. In addition to podcasting, he appears regularly on television. In twenty-twenty five he became the first podcaster to attend a White House cabinet meeting. In twenty seventeen, Michael published the number one national best-selling book, Reasons to Vote for Democrats. Michael's first book with words, Speechless, also reached number one on the national best seller list in twenty twenty. His writing has been featured in the Claremont Review of Books, the American Conservative, Fox News, and other outlets. Michael is a graduate of Yale University and has lectured at universities and research institutes around the world. world. Medi Hassan is an award-winning journalist known for riveting one-on-one conversations as well as his coverage of national politics, current affairs and global news. Medi is the editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo. Medi is recently the host of the Medi Hassan show on MSNBC and Peacock. He was also a political analyst for MSNBC. Before that, Medi was a senior columnist and host of the podcast Deconstructed at The Intercept and a political commentator and and presenter at Al Jazeera. Mehdi is the author of three books, a biography of former UK Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, an e-book on the financial crisis and austerity economics, and he most recently authored Win Every Argument, The Art of Debating, Persuading and Public Speaking. Moderating tonight's conversation is Ella Klinsky, a 26 from New York City, studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics. Without further ado, please join me in extending a warm welcome to Michael Knowles, Mehdi Hassan and Ella Klinsky.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Thank you both so much for being here. I can hope only hope that one day I have as impressive an intro as you guys both just had. And thank you so much to the audience and to everyone watching online. The way this debate will function is we will begin by doing a moderated Q&A where I will ask a question directed at one of you. We will alternate who begins every question. And we will each have opportunity to give a two minute response and then whoever started will have time for a one minute rebuttal. And then after the moderated Q&A, we will switch over to audience questions. So start getting them ready. So to start off, before we get into specific issues, I would like to start with foundational question. What, in practical terms, do you believe it means for a president to uphold or deviate from the Constitution, and does this differ from upholding constitutional norms? If so, how? We'll start with you, Mehdi, and you can each give a two minute response and a one minute rebuttal.

Mehdi Hasan: Uh yes, so thank you for having me. Great to be here. I'm actually disappointed with that vote of seventy eight twenty two,

SPEAKER_03: Unbelievable.

Mehdi Hasan: because you know what they say, the only way for me is down. Um yeah, so good luck to me. Um I would say constitutional norms very vague I'm not sure actually what that means apart from a historical precedent what other people have done and I think tonight I'm guessing Michael can tell me I'm wrong that a lot of Michael's argument will be well other presidents did this a lot of whataboutism a lot of see what X did see what Y did see what Obama did see what Biden did and I think we have just have to be very clear here we're talking about Donald Trump today Donald Trump is sui generis there's never been a president like him before certainly not in our lifetimes He's undeniably violating both constitutional norms, i.e. precedent, but also the Constitution, the amendments, the articles of the Constitution in this country. He's doing it all the time. At this point, at this stage, anyone who tells you Donald Trump is not violating the Constitution is gaslighting you and or a member of his cult, right? That's, the facts are very clear. We can go through them in order. I mean, right now, if you look at the Constitution, non-Trump. it's violating uh the appropriations clause, the emoluments clause, the elections clause, the taxing and spending clause, the take care clause, the declare war clause. He's also violating the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, maybe soon the Twenty Second Amendment, as he suggested yesterday. And you know yes, other presidents, to go back to your question, have violated norms. Other presidents have certainly violated authors of the Constitution. But no president, certainly not in modern American history, has launched a multi-pronged, across-the-board open assault on, forget norms, on the amendments and articles of our Constitution in the space of less than 18 months, right? Yes, previous presidents have violated perhaps a single constitutional amendment, sure, and been called out for it, but none of them. None of them said they planned to terminate the Constitution as Donald Trump once did. None of them said I don't know when they were asked, as Trump was on Meet the Press last year, is it the job of the President to uphold the Constitution? I don't know, he said. None of them declared themselves to be a king or a dictator, even for a day. None of them were rebuked by their own vice-president for trying to violate the Constitution and the rule of law. What did Mike Pence say? I know Michael's a big fan of Mike Pence, so I came specially with a Mike Pence quote. Mike Pence said, President Trump demanded I choose between him and our Constitution. If you are pressuring your own Vice President to put you above your Constitution, you're not just violating norms, you're violating the Constitution, you're violating your oath of office. And it is very clear tonight that Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to the Constitution. Forget norms. Let's raise the bar. To the Constitution, to the articles and amendments of the Constitution, to our rights and liberties, to our democracy. And you don't have to take my word for that tonight. Just take Mike Pence's.

Michael Knowles: the Mike Penn standard of constitutional jurisprudence. Okay, wonderful to be here. Thank you all for having me. You know, my father is a Dartmouth graduate, so I hope I don't do the family too much shame this evening. But I don't think I will because we have to, to Mehdi's point, we have to narrow in on what exactly we're discussing. What does it mean to uphold the Constitution? And I certainly hope That my opponent here does not mean some kind of pedantic literalism that merely looks at the text of the Constitution, that we should certainly do that as well, but to uphold the Constitution, it would seem to me, would entail upholding what the Constitution has meant, how the Constitution has obtained, how it has in fact governed our country from the beginning through the present. And so I think my opponent here is trying to break me away from citing historical historical precedent and how other presidents have upheld the Constitution. And I think that's for a very good reason. If I were in your shoes, I would do the very same because when you look at how the Constitution has in fact been put into effect in the United States, uh no reasonable person could could even suggest that Trump is not upholding it. Uh you know, if we were to use this very limited pedantic literalist random constitution then we would we would have to disqualify virtually every single president we've ever had from upholding the constitution all the modern presidents who have uh uh surveilled on on mass uh all of the great presidents who have violated habeas corpus who have interned people to two great presidents and two great parties the uh republican abraham lincoln and the democrat franklin roosevelt But going back even further, we would have to disqualify Jefferson for the Louisiana Purchase. We would actually have to disqualify President Washington because President Washington declared neutrality in the French Revolutionary Wars and he was accused of violating the Constitution by no less a man than James Madison, the father of the Constitution. But Madison gets his comeuppance because Madison would be accused of failing to uphold the Constitution. when he annexed West Florida. So I think when we take a look at what the Constitution has meant, how it has been interpreted by the three co-equal branches of government, adjudicated by the Supreme Court, laws enacted by the Congress, and then of course the executive power in the president, we will find that the Constitution prevails, the warnings of the histrionic critics of President Trump, who have been promising us that he is on the brink of shredding the Constitution for about About 10 years now, any day now it's coming, I think we will find that President Trump is indeed the President and the Constitution nevertheless, and I think very much for that reason, prevails.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Would you like to respond?

Mehdi Hasan: I would love to respond.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): OK, you have one minute.

Mehdi Hasan: The best thing about social media is uh you can see what's going on in the world. And today I looked at Michael Knowles's tweet advertising this event, and underneath the tweet Tim Pool, another podcaster some of you may know, posted what looked like a grok-generated list of previous presidents who had violated the constitution. So I was able to prep myself for the debate knowing that Michael would address all of those examples, which he did. Thomas Jefferson, Louisiana Purchase, ratified by Congress. Abraham Lincoln and FDR. Hmm, Civil War and World War II, I don't see either of those things happening right now. We can go through the list. I've already conceded that previous presidents have done unconstitutional things, but Donald Trump has done it in a way that no other president has, in a time frame no other president has, without the excuses that other presidents could at least point to. World War II and the Civil War, you think that's what's happening in America right now when he goes after migrants and Home Depot parking lots? No, that is not what's happening. happening right now. And let's just be very clear, Margaret says no one could dispute uh that he's upholding the constitution. He says histrionics. Do you know who Terry Doughty and Nancy Brazel and Amy Sintive and uh Trevor McFadden, and uh we go through the list, Daniel Rodriguez, uh for the sorry, excuse me, Fernando Rodriguez Junior, Annan Albright, uh Eric Committee, Carl Dudek, Justin Lang, we can go through the list. Do you know who these people are? They are Trump-appointed judges who have ruled against Donald Trump. Since last January, in key constitutional cases, First Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, they've all said Donald Trump, what he's doing is violating the Constitution. These people are not liberals or Marxists, as Stephen Miller says. They're not doing histrionics, as Michael says. They are looking at the Constitution, and even as MAGA judges, they're saying you've gone too far. You have violated these amendments of the Constitution. One judge, I mean, it's Trump judges saying this, not me. It's Mike Pence saying this, not me. Michael can make these arguments. I think these arguments about liberal histrionics the problem is now is that people with eyes and ears who are not mega partisans see what is happening here Donald Trump is doing things that presidents have not done before including ignoring a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Okay. Let's try our hardest for the next questions to really adhere to time regulations.

Mehdi Hasan: We will. We will. It's right there. Oh,

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): It

Mehdi Hasan: are you going to see

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): is right

Mehdi Hasan: the clock?

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): there.

Mehdi Hasan: I saw it and defied it. You at least didn't see it.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Thank you so much for those thoughts. That was really interesting. Many I know you mentioned you talked about ICE immigration and actually in 2025 the Department of Homeland Security reported record-breaking immigration and enforcement actions with over 600,000 deportations. Given this information. Should undocumented immigrants have a right to due process under the Constitution? And if so, can deportations at the rate completed in 2025 be carried out without compromising access to hearings and legal representation? We'll start with you, Michael.

Michael Knowles: Uh sure, uh yes uh in in most cases the foreigners who are being deported are entitled to due process of the law. This is not the case uh necessarily when it comes to revocation of visas, which are not some natural or constitutional right, but in the case of the people who are being deported uh they are entitled to due process and they are receiving due process actually from uh President Trump. Uh but not all due process is created equal and the immigration and uh Nationality Act, which is uh endured for some sixty years and in other forms for longer, uh recognises that there is a role for expedited uh deportations and uh it's not only President Trump who's insisted upon this, but it's uh all of his recent predecessors, going back to Bill Clinton, and George Bush, and Barack Obama, who uh he contradicts himself sometimes. The Democrats when they want to appeal to the people who who voted for the mass deportations and in the popular vote they pretend that Barack Obama deported lots and lots of people as many as Trump but then when they want to say the deportations were unconstitutional they really barely deported anybody but Joe Biden did the same thing and Trump as well my opponent says that No one has acted as quickly in these egregious displays as President Trump. That, of course, is facially absurd, because President Trump is only the second president in American history to win a non-consecutive second term. So he's just had longer than any other president other than FDR who certainly did upset constitutional norms. But regardless, they do have due process. He is following that. And the mass deportations really could be much larger. Let's not forget the great Democrat President Truman who deported who deported near three quarters of a million foreigners, Mexicans. He did so with scanty due process of the law. That was in '52. Following President Eisenhower in 1954 deported 1.1 million in Operation Wetback. There was not even really the suggestion that either of those men had violated the law by deporting foreigners who don't really have any right to be here. So President Trump is very much within the mainstream of the Constitution in his deportation. reportations, and frankly I wish you were more racist.

Mehdi Hasan: So uh just to respond very quickly on on the on the main point about deporting foreigners, you said at the end, who have no right to be here. Notice the phrasing. Deporting foreigners have no right to be How do we know they have no right to be here unless they have due process? That's the whole point. When you end up deporting American citizens, do you know they deported American citizens? Uh Terry Daugherty is a Trump judge who last year ruled that a two-year-old American child who was deported with her mother against her father's wishes who is in the U_S_ He said we just, the administration just deported an American citizen without any meaningful process. That was a Trump judge's verdict when he heard what ICE had done, right? In Minnesota, another Trump judge, her name is Nancy Brazel, appointed by Donald Trump. She said the government asserts the right to arrest thousands of people, put them in an overcrowded warehouse and then deny them their right to due process. That's Nancy Brazel ruling against this administration on Fifth Amendment grounds. rounds. Again, Trump judges. Uh Steve uh Michael seems to be under some illusion that we're here to debate Democrats versus Republicans. Unlike Michael, I'm not a partisan. I'm not here to blindly defend a Democratic president. I don't really care what Harry Truman did. I already conceded presidents have done bad things, but no one has done stuff like Trump. Let me give you one example. Eighteen months he's been in office. Eighteen months. He's defied court cases, defied court orders. In one in eight cases AP just did a story, the Associated Press, the other day, 31 court cases that he lost, he's just ignoring the court orders. Presidents haven't done that before. They violated the Constitution, then a court says, hey, you did something wrong, and then they fix it. They don't say F off to the judges. That is what this president does. Let me give you another example on the immigration front. Between October and February of this year, according to a recent study, Hundreds of judges across the country ruled 4,400 times, I'm going to say that again, 4,400 times judges across this country ruled that Donald Trump and his administration were illegally detaining migrants in this country without due process. 4,400 times. You find me another president, I'll wait here all day, who has done that in a four month period. 4,400 rulings by judges. By the way, in one in four cases where judges rule against Trump, these are Republican appointed judges. So this argument from Miller and co, these are all Marxists. No, these are judges, conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Republicans saying Donald Trump's violating the law even when it comes to migrants, even when it comes to foreign students who have a right to be here and have a free speech right under the Constitution. First Amendment covers foreign students in this room. I hope foreign students here know that.

Michael Knowles: I'm a little confused by my opponent's argument because he tells me he's not a partisan and he's not here to debate Republicans and Democrats. Uh

Mehdi Hasan: Not

Michael Knowles: almost

Mehdi Hasan: here to defend,

Michael Knowles: almost

Mehdi Hasan: just to present.

Michael Knowles: the very first word out of his mouth was Mike Pence and appealing to all of these Republican judges. But uh listen, I think the Republican party is the worst party in the United States other than the Democrats. So uh you know, I'm I'm not here to uh as as my opponent does seem to be to go tit for tat on Republicans versus Democrats. Democrats, we're here to talk about the Constitution. And we can't talk about how the Constitution has actually governed the country unless we talk about the people who have affected it, and those people are Republicans and are Democrats. But I'm also confused by my opponent's reaction. And I think this might be because my opponent here has the misfortune of having grown up in a foreign country where he did not learn proper English. You know, the United Kingdom, they don't... So maybe... Maybe uh maybe he mis misheard when I spoke, but I I answered in the affirmative. Of course uh illegal aliens, in most cases, have the right to due process. But they don't have the right to lengthy due process, this has been uh uh precedent for many decades. And uh in all of those cases my my opponent here cites the A_P_ This involves uh th these uh problems with the courts generally involve delays more than outright uh refusals. And Both Barack Obama and Joe Biden have also been guilty of the same delays. So I'm happy that in this one case we're in agreement. The illegal aliens deserve due process, and now that they have it they need to get out.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Okay. Well, again, thank you for your thoughts. Remember we're keeping this a nice respectful debate and

SPEAKER_07: Sorry.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): we can try to ourselves. No, I'm just, we're just preemptively telling you we're keeping it respectful. I would love to now talk about Iran. It is top of mind for lots of people here in the news, etc. Specifically, President Trump's Operation Epic Fury targeting Iran was carried out without prior authorization from Congress. This has reignited a long-standing constitutional debate over war powers. At the same time, President Trump has argued that involving Congress can pose operational risks, citing concerns about leaks and the need for speed in national security decisions. So the question is, how should we balance Congress's right to declare war with the practical demands of secrecy and rapid response in modern warfare? And. Was Trump's action significantly different from that of his predecessors, or does it represent a growing trend among the executive branch? We'll start with you, Manny.

Mehdi Hasan: It's a great question, and I'm glad you mentioned the speed issue. Michael mentioned speed a moment ago when it came to migrants. There's no speed issue. Donald Trump bombed seven countries last year after claiming to be the peacemaker and insisting on a Nobel Peace Prize, but he got a FIFA one. He bombed seven countries. uh which weren't attacking us. Uh he started this year by bombing Venezuela and taking kidnaping the President of that country. Uh again, not a country that was attacking us, there was no self defence right, no UN resolution. You can only go to war in this country uh under international law uh if it's self defence or if it's authorised by the UN. Not the case in Venezuela. Not the case in Iran. Iran obviously was not attacking us, we were in the middle of negotiations when we attacked them. Um and Marco Rubio admitted we attacked them because Israel was about to attack them, not They were about to attack us. So there was no speed, there was no justification and it is a good question about the balance and again I suspect Michael is going to say well all previous presidents have declared war without congressional approval which isn't true by the way. George W. Bush, I'm going to go home and take a shower after this but I'm going to defend George W. Bush. George W. Bush went and got an authorization for the use of military force against Afghanistan in 2001. He went and got an authorization for the use of military force against Iraq. Iraq in 2002. Now I feel disgusting, but George Bush did that, right? Barack Obama, when he was about to bomb Syria, tried to go to Congress, couldn't get the votes, did not bomb Syria. Now Libya, Barack Obama did go and violate the Constitution and the War Powers Act, I will agree with that. But let me say a couple of things here. Number one, Barack Obama, he would argue, let me make the case for why it's different, to go back to your question. There's no comparison between Iran and Libya. First... There was a U.N. resolution for Libya. It was being enforced by NATO operation that U.S. joined to stop an imminent massacre of people in Benghazi. That was the stated aim. No U.N. approval in Iran. No NATO mission in Iran. No imminent massacre of civilians. That happened in Benghazi, not when we attacked. Number two, Barack Obama claimed it wasn't a war because it was a limited military operation because no American troops were at risk and no regional escalation. Well, in Iran, 13 Americans dead, hundreds of Americans injured. Not just regional escalation, but... But global fallout right Americans suffering at the pump because of this war and number three I would say this look This is undoubtedly unconstitutional against Congress Donald Trump submitted it He said if I call it a war I'll have to get approval and then he called it a war But I will agree it was unconstitutional under Obama and I think it's unconstitutional under Trump and I hope Michael will agree that we can both agree That in both cases neither president was upholding the Constitution. I'll add that to my list of constitutional abuses by Donald Trump tonight

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Can you agree?

Events Director:: Well, I'm glad that my opponent continues to eschew comparisons to past presidents to tip the tap between the Democrats and the Republicans, but you're right, I was going to bring up Libya, because this involves not only the Constitution, but also the War Powers Act. One thing it doesn't involve, though, I'm a little confused. Are we debating tonight UN resolutions or are we debating the NATO charter?

Michael Knowles: I thought we were debating constitutionality, and I suspect Mr. Hassan is deferring to these other organizations because there was not a great constitutionalist predicate for what happened in Libya. The War Powers Act gives the president the ability to wage war without the approval of Congress for 60 days, and then it can be extended

Mehdi Hasan: That's

Michael Knowles: for

Mehdi Hasan: right.

Michael Knowles: an additional 30 days to take it to 90. Now, the president is the commander-in-chief of the military already has a has a constitutional predicate to lead the the military. Uh however what Barack Obama did in in Libya did not just go for sixty or ninety days, it went for eight months. Uh how about Joe Biden? Joe Biden uh waged war in Yemen against the Houthis. That went on for a year. I didn't hear a peep from the people concerned about the shredding of the Constitution. But when it comes to the war in Iran, I'll I'll put my cards on the table. I was sceptical of the war before it began. I was sceptical when it was declared. It was declared. I remain skeptical of it today. Happily for me, I don't need to convince you to support the war in Iran. That's a combination of the liberal pronunciation and the conservative pronunciation, Iran and Iran. I don't need to convince you to support the war. I don't need to convince you to like Donald Trump. I don't need to convince you this is a good military operation. I just need to show you that what Trump is doing is well within constitutional means. It's, in fact, much more restrained. than anything his recent predecessors have done. I'll remind you that the past presidents, George W. excepted, we think of Ronald Reagan, Grenada, we think of George H.W. Bush and Panama, but we can go back even further than that. We go to Harry Truman, who waged a war in Korea that went on for three years without any formal declaration of war. So we can say that war is very bad and Trump shouldn't be in Iran, but the... The topic at hand is whether or not Trump is within the constitutional mainstream. And if that, he's actually quite moderate.

Mehdi Hasan: 60 seconds, let me just quickly respond. Number one, the bigger point, let me start with the bigger point, which is Michael's whataboutism tonight, which is keeping pointed to previous presidents. As I pointed out, the analogies didn't work. They're not the same in many of the cases he's citing. And even if they were the same. All that would prove is that previous presidents didn't uphold the Constitution either. The debate tonight is Donald Trump upholding the Constitution. We can all agree he isn't. Michael seems to agree he isn't. His only defence is, well, other presidents didn't uphold it either. Let's just deal with some facts. The UN Charter is not some foreign body. The UN Charter was incorporated into US law as a treaty in a Senate vote in 1945 by a vote of 89 to 2. It is the law of the land. Donald Trump violated. The UN Charter and violated international law and US law by bombing Iran, he violated Congress by bombing Iran, and he violated the War Powers Act. By the way, Michael is completely wrong, the War Powers Act does not give you the power to declare war without congressional approval, exactly the opposite. It says if you go to war without congressional approval, which is wrong, you have to notify within 48 hours. And then you have 60 days to stop, which he hasn't done, he crossed 60 days last week. So he's doubly illegal. In fact, una hathaway of Yale University. professor of international law says this war is triply illegal because it's against UN Charter, it's against uh US Congress's right under the Constitution and it's against the War Powers Act. That doesn't apply to Libya by the way. Uh so Trump is unique there. And this idea that he was following Congress when he bombed Yemen last year, when he bombed Nigeria on Christmas Day, remember that? Probably not, 'cause he bombed so many countries without congressional approval. The idea that he's upholding the Constitution while stealing Congress's right to declare war and bombing multiple countries is absurd.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): I would like to stay on this foreign policy avenue and talk a little bit about Venezuela. So President Donald Trump characterized former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro as, quote, terrorist, incited his indictment on drug-related charges as justification for the U.S. military raid in Caracas in early 2026. By framing military action in Venezuela as a law enforcement action, does that expand presidential power in ways that unfairly bypass Congress, or is that a necessary adaption to modern threats?

Michael Knowles: Uh no, it it's uh certainly not outside the norms. It doesn't expand presidential power. Toppling dictatorships in Latin America is as American as apple pie. And

Mehdi Hasan: Thank you.

Michael Knowles: it gets a fairly nice round of applause. I can't help but call out a uh rather dishonest tactic that my opponent here is using. He keeps suggesting what aboutism because I'm making historical comparisons and uh invoking uh presidents of both parties I would like to point out my opponent opened the debate he made the first statement and he began by doing just that so I and I think it's good that he did that actually because there is no way to understand what it means to uphold the Constitution without reference to history and in the case of Latin America obviously our history goes goes back a very long way the Monroe doctrine is a cornerstone perhaps the cornerstone of American foreign policy and there were uh there was a legal predicate out for the arrest of Nicholas Maduro. Uh in in the case of President Trump's military actions, by the way, it's worth observing that we never hear why he is engaging in these kind of things. In Nigeria, of course, why would you bomb Nigeria on Christmas Day? It might have to do with the genocide of Christians that is going on in Nigeria and America's role as the global hegemon, which again, like it or not, is pretty well predicated. But returning to the specific topic at hand, Nicolas Maduro, it had been an aspect of American foreign policy for some 26 years to depose the regime in Venezuela. We had a legal reason to do it. Not only were they stealing our goods, but they were also sending criminals into our country, helping to flood our country, break our basic laws, and they were working with designated foreign terrorist organisations. So any way you slice it, we had the right to arrest him. A lawless President would have just blown his head off, as we've done before, but President Trump did not do that. Nicholas Maduro is enjoying due process of law in New York City. and it's probably a much nicer place than Venezuela is. So I look forward to oil prices going down, I look forward to a flourishing country, and I look forward to the recognition that President Trump's policy in Venezuela is not only out of step with American constitutional norms, it is in fact part of American grand strategy dating back to 1945. to nineteen ninety nine.

Mehdi Hasan: Prison in America is a nicer place than Venezuela.

Michael Knowles: Yeah.

Mehdi Hasan: Okay. Okay. Um let's just deal with some issues uh that you raised there. Michael made an omission he perhaps shouldn't have made there. Do you notice what he said about Maduro? He said a lawless president, his words. Am I being dishonest, is that what you said? A lawless president.

Michael Knowles: Not with reference to Trump.

Mehdi Hasan: A law- but you said a lawless president would have just killed him. That's funny, because what did we do in Iran on day one of that war? We killed, we killed the leader of Iran. So by Michael's definition... Donald Trump is a lawless president. He went to war in Iran without congressional approval, without a UN Security Council resolution, as we've already discussed. He went to war in Venezuela without a congressional approval or a UN Security Council resolution. The idea that he did it because the guy's a drug trafficker is hilarious. I'm no defender of Maduro. Let's see what the court says. But he pardoned another Latin American head of government who is in American prison for cocaine trafficking into the US. He pardoned him. So real consistency there when it comes to drug trafficking. As for NATO. for Nigeria. Number one, it's not a genocide of Christians. The first lady of Nigeria is a Christian, the defense minister is a Christian. Terrorist groups like ISIS in Nigeria and Boko Haram kill Muslims and Christians alike. It's a horrific violence, but it's not a Christian genocide. No one actually believes that. And even if it was, that's not the debate. The debate is did he have the legal right to bomb Nigeria or did he have to go to Congress, which he did not. He never goes to Congress. And let's take a step back here. Let's get out of the weeds here. What is the common thread tonight? It's not about just migrants or free speech or students or wars. It is about a president who doesn't just test the limit of the law. He puts himself above the law. Donald Trump doesn't recognize congressional restrictions. He doesn't recognize Supreme Court restrictions. Michael doesn't want to talk about a nine-zero Supreme Court ruling saying you've got to bring, you've got to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. And Trump says to an ABC reporter, I could, but I'm not going to. No president has done that before. You want to play whataboutism? And it is whataboutism. Tell me, which President said after a 9-0 ruling, yeah, I'm not gonna do it. There hasn't been one. It's only Donald Trump who does this when it comes to war, when it comes to migration, when it comes to Supreme Court. That is why we're saying he does not uphold the Constitution, because the evidence is clear. And if Trump were here tonight, he'd probably say, yeah, you're right.

Michael Knowles: Well,

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Are we?

Michael Knowles: my opponent got a great laugh line uh just now, but uh unfortunately he only did so by uh by misrepresenting the facts.

Mehdi Hasan: Okay.

Michael Knowles: Uh it when when one, there's a difference between Venezuela and uh uh Iran, but uh furthermore, when we look at Iran, uh one, we were not the ones that killed the Ayatollah, that was the Israelis. And my opponent loves to complain about the Israelis. Israelis perhaps they can do it tonight or another time, but that was the Israelis who did it. So we ha we do have to get basic facts right here. We provided air support,

Mehdi Hasan: Trump but took

Michael Knowles: the

Mehdi Hasan: credit

Michael Knowles: Israelis

Mehdi Hasan: for it. You

Michael Knowles: did.

Mehdi Hasan: know that. He's public. He's taken credit

Michael Knowles: Uh if

Mehdi Hasan: for killing them.

Michael Knowles: we could avoid the interruption, I just wanna point out that your laugh line was based on a complete misunderstanding

Mehdi Hasan: And you're being

Michael Knowles: what

Mehdi Hasan: dishonest.

Michael Knowles: actually happened, but I'll try to finish my point. Uh so one, uh I I think that gives you a good sense of of where we stand on uh international expertise, because also Venezuela is a different country. country from Iran. Iran has been waging war against the United States for some 50 years now. They obviously killed over 200 American troops in the Beirut barracks bombings, and we have not retaliated for that in a serious way. Iran since then has killed many American troops throughout the Middle East. There was a very strong legal predicate for taking out the Ayatollah, even if you think it's not a prudential thing to do. Whereas the very different intervention into Venezuela Ella involved orders from judges, involved the commission of crimes, and now there will be a trial in in New York. So the the one c uh similarity between the two, and perhaps we can agree on this, is that uh the the intervention into Venezuela was rather restrained. We didn't actually depose the regime. We just put a gun to the head of the deputy and said, play nice or you it's gonna be you next. And uh I don't know that we're gonna depose the regime in Iran either. A a more expansive president might do that as Republicans and Democrats The Democrats have done. Trump, once again, I point out, is so restrained here, so moderate, so well within the mainstream that we aren't even seeing regime change in either of those places.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): I think it was briefly mentioned the idea of emergency acts and extenuating circumstances and I want to zoom in on that. President Donald Trump argued that his imposition of tariffs during Liberation Day was justified under the International Emergencies Economic Powers Act or the IEPA. However, the Supreme Court found the IEPA does not authorize the president to impose sweeping tariffs such as that in Liberation Day. With this in mind, how should we think about the limit the limits of presidential authority when it comes to using emergency powers to shape major policy.

Mehdi Hasan: Okay.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Take it away.

Mehdi Hasan: I'm going to cheat before I answer that question. I'm going to go back to something Michael said a moment ago because facts matter. The war in Iran is a joint U.S.-Israeli operation. The idea that Israel killed Khamenei on their own is absurd. If you look at the reporting Netanyahu came to Trump, Trump's intelligence agency came and confirmed that Khamenei was in this building, in this time, at this place. Do you want to kill him? So let's just be very clear that we are responsible for that. There was no international legal justification for it. Every international law professor says it was illegal. Every... Every international lawyer says what happened in Venezuela was illegal. We defied. There's a reason why our own allies don't back us in these places. On emergency powers, a great question. We can actually talk specifics. You mentioned the Supreme Court. You'll notice, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think, and this is good faith, I swear, I don't think Michael has said the word Supreme Court tonight. Maybe I missed it. But let's talk specifics. I mentioned the 9-0 ruling by the Supreme Court on Kilmarnock-Brigger-Garcia. Trump just said F off. The tariffs case in February, we all knew tariffs. do tariffs or taxes. Everyone knew that. The Trump administration tried to lie to us and say they're not taxes. You know, the Trump administration wants to, what's the phrase, piss on your leg and tell you it's raining, right? It's not a tax. It is a tax. Every economist agrees it's a tax, every lawyer agrees it's a tax. So the Supreme Court step in and say, well, you know, the taxing and spending clause says only Congress gets to lay and impose taxes, excises, imposts and duties. And they strike down 6-3. 6-3, not even close. In February, the IEEP used by Donald Trump and say you need to refund the tariffs. By the way, the refunds begin next week and 75,000 businesses have asked for refunds, which is weird because I was told China's paying the tariffs. But anyways, on the specific legal part of this, this is really interesting because Donald Trump used the IEEP, which is an act from the 1970s, 1977, which you can use in an economic emergency. Trump claimed the emergency was fentanyl and migration and trade deficits. He claimed there was a national emergency because we have a trade deficit. Okay. And then, here's the best part, he uses the act to go after his enemies, like he always does, like he goes after his political enemies, he goes after his international enemies. He uses the act completely illegally, as the Supreme Court's pointed out, to basically settle scores. And we know this. How do we know this? Because Trump said so. When the Swiss president called him up to negotiate a reduced tariff, he raised the tariff and said, I did it because she rubbed me up the wrong way. She was annoying she was aggressive to erase the taxes the Brazilians prosecuted. Yeah Bolsonaro good for them I wish we'd done it to Trump Trump got mad and raised tariffs on American consumers to punish Brazil. That's what the founders envisaged. That's what the founders thought they were doing when we were getting away from mad King George from my old country. Was that what they thought they were doing? Giving the president the right to tax Americans because he gets pissed off by a European leader or a South American government? Of course it's an abuse of power. Of course it's completely unconstitutional. Of course it goes against the vision of the founders. That is very, very clear.

Michael Knowles: I'm reminded of a meme that I see sometimes in Catholic circles. There's a meme of a guy goes into the confessional box. He says, Father, I like to hop on one leg while eating a piece of pizza and honking my nose. And the priest says, My son, that is very weird, but it is not a sin. And that's the example that Mehdi seems to be giving here. He says, I really hate what Trump did on these tariffs. But one of the mechanisms by which Trump implemented the tariffs. The Supreme Court rejected, and the administration, being very well within the constitutional mainstream, accepted that and then attempted to use other statutes to implement some other tariffs. But nevertheless, they accepted the Supreme Court's rulings, as they generally do. And so... It you might say I hate tariffs you might say I don't like the way President Trump conducts diplomacy I'm speaking to a group of Ivy League students obviously probably many of you think that but and there is nowhere that I see that to be unconstitutional I mean for goodness sakes the Republican Party was founded on tariffs Abraham Lincoln famously said give me a tariff and I'll give you the best country in the world the Republican Party was pro tariff through the early 20th century flipped a little bit in the mid to late 20th century And now we seem to like tariffs again. Presidents of both parties levy tariffs through a variety of mechanisms. You can say it's bad economic policy, but there's certainly nothing unconstitutional about it. To Mehdi's point that the companies are eating the cost of the tariffs in many cases, that is true. I know this because I own a company called Mayflower Cigars, which makes great cigars, and I highly recommend them. But we did eat the cost of a lot of thank you very much. We did eat the cost. of a lot of the tariffs. That's true. And I do wonder if as a political tactic, the refunds for those tariffs that are forthcoming might actually help juice the economy before the midterm. So in a way, it's probably a good political tactic. But I've yet to see some argument that the tariffs would have been unconstitutional. You know, the point that we've observed here is that the Supreme Court struck them down under the basis of a national emergency and the Trump White House complied. So what are we even arguing? doing here.

Mehdi Hasan: So Michael, since you were the one who introduced the word a dishonest tactic, let me say it back to you. I think you're engaged in dishonest tactics tonight by avoiding the substance of argument every time. It's not whether there's a genocide in Nigeria. The issue is, did Donald Trump have the constitutional power to bomb Nigeria? No. It's not whether tariffs are good or bad. That's irrelevant to this debate. Of course tariffs are totally fine if Congress imposed them, not Donald Trump because he didn't like the female leader of Switzerland and how she spoke. She spoke to him on the phone. That is the key question that we're debating today. At every instance, every question that Ella's asked, every topic we've covered, I've pointed out that what he's doing is going against the constitution, going against Supreme Court, going against Trump appointed judges, going against precedent that you like to cite, and you're dodging it and you're saying things about, well tariffs are part of our history. Okay, great. This is not about tariffs. It's about what Donald Trump did with tariffs. He took a power from the Constitution, the taxing and spending clause, Article 1, Section 8, only Congress shall have the power to lay or collect taxes, duties, imposts, excises. And he arrogated it to himself because he believes there are no checks on his power. He's on the record. He said in 2019, I have an Article 2 power to do whatever I want as president. That is not what Article 2 says. He does not have the power to do whatever he wants. The founding fathers did not. did not create America so that they could have another monarch, another king, another dictator, but no one seems to have given that memo to Donald Trump. And when he lost at the Supreme Court, Michael said he accepted the decision. Again, dishonest. He actually said that the judges were fools and lapdogs. He said Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch embarrassed themselves in front of their families. And he also said that the Supreme Court justices are weak, stupid and bad. Again, point to me a president who said stuff like that in the modern era.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Well, this is unfortunately our last moderated question before we go to audience Q&A and I would like to bring it back closer to home. You've both experienced elite higher education, except I would argue your father at Dartmouth experienced the Of best higher

Michael Knowles: course, of

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): education.

Michael Knowles: course. Yes.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): And I'm sure you have seen the recent changes in dynamics between U.S. universities and the federal government. As debates over free speech and ideological diversity intensify on campuses, what role, if any, should the federal government play in ensuring viewpoint diversity? And what would that role look like within constitutional limits? I believe you started last night, so we'll go right to you.

Michael Knowles: Yes. I actually don't love viewpoint diversity. I don't really care for it at all. I know that puts me outside the right-wing mainstream, but I'm perfectly fine with institutions having beliefs and standards and norms, and I think societies ought to have that. Even the notion of protecting viewpoint diversity is relatively recent, comes from the mid-90s in our jurisprudence. But regardless, I'm all for reforming the universities which are failing in their chief missions. So I suppose the question is, is is President Trump suppressing the First Amendment? And I know that my opponent here on stage made a bold prediction, a promise really, is in March of 2024. He said that if President Trump were to be elected again, the stakes for the media were very, very high. What would happen to the free press under President Trump? You know, he's already threatening to do it. Last I checked, unfortunately, the New York Times and the CNN still get to publish. Uh, MSNBC has sort of gone downhill, but that's mostly 'cause NBC didn't want to deal with them anymore. Uh there has been really no threat to free speech whatsoever

SPEAKER_13: Oh.

Michael Knowles: under President Trump. His critics are are a allowed to uh threaten to kill him. I mean, in the case of Ahsan Piker, uh one of the chief uh the critics of President Trump and one of the people who's instigated violence was exulted by the New York Times just last week after three assassination attempts. So I wish that frankly there were more limits on speech under Trump but there there certainly is not. And then when you look at constitutional precedent we of course have to remember that our second president of the United States, John Adams passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, much of which remains on the books today. Under Woodrow Wilson, Democrat president, he imprisoned his political rival, Eugene Debs, the leader of the Socialist Party. But that act has been used to prosecute people for speech for many, many years, including the Socialist journalist, the head of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the leaker of the Pentagon Papers, and Bradley Manning, even under Barack Obama. So we've seen a lot of curtailment of speech. I think a lot of that is within the confines of the First Amendment. And I wish that President Trump would tighten it up a little bit, especially when it comes to those left-wing universities that receive federal dollars and certainly don't need to.

Mehdi Hasan: That is an amazing answer, Michael, both to deny that there's an assault on the free press and to say you wish there was a bit more of an assault on the free press. Let's just be very clear. Let's just be very clear about where the facts are on this. Michael thinks everything's fine. OK. Donald Trump has arrested Don Lemon. He's raided the home of a Washington Post reporter. He has blocked the AP from the Oval Office. He tried to defund NPR and PBS. The judge shut it down. He's tried to ban flag burgling. burning which goes against supreme court case texas versus johnson from 1989 uh he's tried to get a late night comedian fired because he didn't like his jokes uh he has uh just go down the list when it comes to the free press they tried to restrict reporters reporting at the pentagon a judge shot that down too saying you're not supposed to prescribe the press uh he has threatened the new york times just the other day he said they should be guilty of sedition because they reported on his iran war in a way he did not like uh he has engaged in multiple lawsuits to try to intimidate and suppress the press As his defense secretary bragged loudly that CNN will be coming under new Trump-Odish pro-Trump ownership. Just go down the list. Students, we talk about universities. We've seen students arrested for their speech, not for violence, for their speech. A Reagan-appointed judge said the arrest of students like Mahmoud Khalil and Ramesa Osterg was a full-throated assault on the First Amendment. A Reagan-appointed judge, William Young, said that, not some liberal Marxist. And as for, you know, threatening people's speech, just the other day. Today, just a few months ago, Donald Trump threatened six members of Congress with death for their speech. He said seditious behaviour punishable by death. What did they do? They did a video saying, hey military, don't follow illegal orders. He said you should be killed for that. This is the most anti-free speech, anti-free press, anti-viewpoint diversity administration in American history. It's led by a complete snowflake who can't tolerate any criticism from anyone, can't tolerate jokes from late night comedians. Think about the countries where comedians are taken off the airwaves because the leader didn't like their jokes. Are those constitutional democracies? Are those constitutional republics? Are those democracies that we think Americans have? Think about that when you vote tonight. Think about the kind of place where the president threatens students, threatens media organisations, threatens comedians and threatens members of the other party while arresting journalists. The whole thing is absurd to suggest he's not anti-First Amendment president. It's actually at the core of my argument for why he's not upholding the Constitution, because he's not upholding the First Amendment.

Michael Knowles: I think it's very telling that my opponent objects to the arrest of Don Lemon, which was not, in fact, for free speech, but was because Don Lemon violated federal law and

Mehdi Hasan: That's

Michael Knowles: bragged

Mehdi Hasan: not what two

Michael Knowles: about

Mehdi Hasan: judges

Michael Knowles: it on camera.

Mehdi Hasan: said,

Michael Knowles: Excuse me.

Mehdi Hasan: Michael.

Michael Knowles: And violated federal

Mehdi Hasan: That's

Michael Knowles: law

Mehdi Hasan: not true.

Michael Knowles: and bragged about it on camera. He

Mehdi Hasan: Not

Michael Knowles: – if

Mehdi Hasan: true.

Michael Knowles: you'll allow me to finish. I'm trying to engage in my free speech, and there seems to be a heckler's veto at play.

Mehdi Hasan: My free speech too.

Michael Knowles: So what Don Lemon actually did was he violated a federal law, the FACE Act. He walked in with an unruly mob to disrupt a religious proceeding. This terrorized children. He did all sorts of terrible things, targeted Christians. No surprise that that would be given a pass from the man who denied the genocide of Christians in Nigeria tonight, noticing a touch of a trend. But to bring Wow us back to the point, the defunding of PBS is somehow a. a violation of the First Amendment, I thought that the President and the Congress had the right to, well, to take care to make sure that the laws are effected and executed, and also Congress has the power of the purse. I didn't know PBS and Big Bird were in the First Amendment to the Constitution. That

SPEAKER_14: If you talk

Michael Knowles: would be

SPEAKER_14: about

Michael Knowles: news

SPEAKER_14: Big

Michael Knowles: to

SPEAKER_14: Bird.

Michael Knowles: James Madison. When it comes to the curtailment of reporters, No one has been more transparent than President Trump.

Mehdi Hasan: Oh

Michael Knowles: He answers the phone. He answers the phone when CNN journalists call him. I would never do any such thing, but the president does that. He has open gaggles very contrary to his immediate predecessor, Joe Biden. And so yet again, President Trump has exalted the First Amendment. In fact, he has embraced a free speech absolutist position. position. Even when it comes to flag burning, I'll just finish up on this point. Mehdi Hasan points out that the flag burning was ruled a constitutionally protected right in 1989. Curious that it wasn't 1889 or 1789. It's a live question debated in American jurisprudence. President Trump has issued an executive order to bring that challenge back to the court as he should and we'll all be debating it along the way because President Trump loves free speech.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Great. Well, we're going to pivot to audience Q&A. We'll have two mic runners, one on either aisle. I will call on three people to go to each mic runner. So six in total. I'll start. I'll do you, blue shirt, another blue shirt. There's a lot of blue shirts. A white shirt, blue shirt, red shirt, and then green shirt. So three over there and three over there. Perfect. If we have more time, we will take more student questions.

SPEAKER_15: Nature

Questioner 1: Yeah, so thank you guys so much for coming today. A lot of the conversation circulated particularly around Trump's second term activities. I was just curious, to the question of not whether Trump upheld the Constitution with regards to January 6th, but did he uphold constitutional norms?

SPEAKER_15: Hmm

Michael Knowles: Is that for any one of us in particular?

Questioner 1: Particularly you, Michael, but either of you

SPEAKER_17: I'd

Questioner 1: could go

SPEAKER_17: love

Questioner 1: at

SPEAKER_17: to answer

Questioner 1: it.

SPEAKER_17: after Michael.

Michael Knowles: Sure,

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): We yeah. can do two minutes and two minutes.

Michael Knowles: Yeah, sure thing. Uh yes, he did. I think, again, I'm not convincing anyone that they should like love the Horn Hat guy. That's not the basis on which you're voting this evening. Uh but there is a great precedent for uh contested elections in the United States. In fact that's that's what the Twelfth Amendment is about. Uh we've had a number of contested elections. Uh obviously eighteen sixty, the election of Lincoln, the Rutherford B. Hayes, which which resulted in the compromise of 1876. Uh Bush v. Gore uh Al Gore refused to concede for months after that, and there and there were some uh riotous events. So what occurred on uh the Capitol on January sixth was very unfortunate, though it's been much lied about. It's worth pointing out that the only person who was killed in political violence that day was a Trump supporter who was killed by a trigger happy cop. There's also a special irony to Democrats complaining about January sixth. as the worst day in the history of this or any republic, because not only was it not the worst political violence in American history, it wasn't the worst political violence of that year. It followed the little prosecuted BLM riots that very same year, where Kamala Harris and staffers for Joe Biden actually bailed the rioters out of jail. But there's a greater irony, which is that there have been five or six, depending on how you score it, attacks on the Capitol in American history. three. Virtually all of them had been perpetrated by radical leftists. Marxist Harvard professor, Harvard men of course. But then one in nineteen seventy one was perpetrated by Bill Ayers of the weather underground. Bill Ayers in whose living room Barack Obama launched his political career. So it's very unfortunate that that uh took place on January sixth. It's unfortunate that there were questions about the twenty twenty election. Questions which arose because the election rules were radically changed. changed in the weeks and months before the election in some cases unconstitutionally as in the case of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania. It's also a bit strange that Nancy Pelosi took responsibility for not having sufficient security of the Capitol that day. She did that on camera. It was actually a film that her daughter made. You can easily go look it up. And it's very strange that some of the Capitol Police gave the leaders of the insurrection private tours of the Capitol, notably the aforementioned Hornhead. Manhattan guy. But regardless, it's a great pity that it took place. I hope it doesn't take place again. And unfortunately, it's also not totally out of the norm for the United States going back at least to the middle of the 19th century.

Mehdi Hasan: So glad you asked that question because January 6th hadn't come up and it was a big issue from Trump's end of his first term. Mike Pence. We talked about Mike Pence. Why Michael's a fan

Michael Knowles: does of Mike Pence keep coming up?

Mehdi Hasan: his and he was the vice president who didn't endorse the president for another term because he said he made me do unconstitutional stuff. He wanted me to violate my constitutional oath. That's from Mike Pence's testimony. You want to dismiss it because you know there's comeback for it. You cite Al Gore. Al Gore never incited an insurrection. There is no precedent for January 6th. We were used to peaceful transfers of power. Richard Nixon agreed even though he's probably robbed by JFK. Al Gore agreed even though he's probably robbed by George W. Bush. Donald Trump actually lost for sure and he still didn't accept it and incited a riot. Michael says, oh Democrats thought it was the worst day in history. Do you know who said, bar none, it was the most horrifying day in American politics in my lifetime?

Michael Knowles: Mike Pence.

Mehdi Hasan: No.

Michael Knowles: No, I don't

Mehdi Hasan: know. Guess

Michael Knowles: You're guessing

Mehdi Hasan: again.

Michael Knowles: Hardingham's always. So I

Mehdi Hasan: insist Just again, it was Ben Shapiro on January the 7th. He said it was the most horrifying day. that I witnessed in American politics in what noted Democrat Ben

Michael Knowles: But I

Mehdi Hasan: Shapiro

Michael Knowles: always disagree

Mehdi Hasan: said that

Michael Knowles: with that guy.

Mehdi Hasan: on January the 7th. So let's just deal with some facts here. The people who attacked the Capitol were not going on private tours. They were not just a Hornet guy. It was people like Daniel Rodriguez who assaulted Michael Fanone, put him in a stroke, got 12 years in prison. The judge said he was an army of hate and violence. Donald Trump pardoned him. It was people like Andrew Paul Johnson who was just sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing two children in Florida. Donald Trump pardoned him for January the 6th. He pardoned a neo-Nazi called Bradley Tyler Dykes who did a Sieg Heil salute as he attacked police officers. These are the people Trump pardoned. Michael has never condemned Trump for that. Harry Sisson asked Michael on his show earlier this year, would you condemn Donald Trump for doing that? And he wouldn't answer the question, he said I'll never condemn Donald Trump. Do you condemn Donald Trump for pardoning neo-Nazis, domestic abusers, pedophiles?

Michael Knowles: Well, hold on. Was he one of the, was

Mehdi Hasan: Do you condemn

Michael Knowles: he, I'm just asking a clarifying question about that guy. That guy. Was he one of the neo-Nazis who was getting three million bucks from the SPLC or was he a different neo-Nazi?

Mehdi Hasan: Nice, nice diversion. Do you... I'm not Harry Sisson. I'll use up my time. Do you condemn Donald Trump for pardoning neo-Nazis, violent criminals, people who assaulted 140 police officers on January the

Michael Knowles: One

Mehdi Hasan: 6th?

Michael Knowles: last real

Mehdi Hasan: He

Michael Knowles: clarifier.

Mehdi Hasan: won't answer.

Michael Knowles: One last real clarifier

Mehdi Hasan: I'll ask

Michael Knowles: and one

Mehdi Hasan: again.

Michael Knowles: real one.

Mehdi Hasan: Do you... No, no, simple question. Do you support pardoning the 600 people who were charged with

Michael Knowles: Did

Mehdi Hasan: assaulting

Michael Knowles: he pardon

Mehdi Hasan: police officers like

Michael Knowles: them for petting

Mehdi Hasan: Daniel

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Yeah,

Michael Knowles: dogs

Mehdi Hasan: Rodriguez?

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): guys, we're

Michael Knowles: or...

Mehdi Hasan: He

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): going to

Mehdi Hasan: pardoned

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): keep,

Mehdi Hasan: them for assaulting

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): we're

Mehdi Hasan: police. Do you

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): going to keep.

Mehdi Hasan: support that?

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Okay,

Mehdi Hasan: Do you support

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): all

Mehdi Hasan: that? Yeah. Okay. Three

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): right, so

Mehdi Hasan: times he has an

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): gonna

Mehdi Hasan: iPod

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): stick to

Mehdi Hasan: assaulting

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): the two

Mehdi Hasan: police.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): minutes two

Mehdi Hasan: Do

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): minutes

Questioner 1: you not

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): on

Mehdi Hasan: see is that you condemn Donald Trump for pardoning 600

Questioner 1: I

Mehdi Hasan: people who assaulted police officers? Fourth time, can you do it?

Questioner 1: I'm happy to, I condemn pedophilia,

Mehdi Hasan: Do

Questioner 1: neo

Mehdi Hasan: you condemn

Questioner 1: -Nazism,

Mehdi Hasan: Donald Trump

Questioner 1: I

Mehdi Hasan: for pardoning

Questioner 1: condemn and

Mehdi Hasan: January

Questioner 1: I condemn,

Mehdi Hasan: 6th riots if he won't do it? He will not do

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Excuse

Mehdi Hasan: it.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): me. We have a debate format. We're gonna stick to the debate format. We're not

Questioner 1: I

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): gonna add.

Questioner 1: made my

Michael Knowles: Benny

Questioner 1: point.

Michael Knowles: doesn't

Questioner 1: I made

Michael Knowles: want to

Questioner 1: my

Michael Knowles: stick

Questioner 1: point.

Michael Knowles: to the

Mehdi Hasan: You

Michael Knowles: debate.

Mehdi Hasan: don't want to answer that question.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): The

Michael Knowles: But yeah,

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): two-minute

Michael Knowles: but hang

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): debate

Michael Knowles: on.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): format.

Mehdi Hasan: You don't want to answer the question,

Michael Knowles: I

Mehdi Hasan: my will friend.

Michael Knowles: have I'm happy to answer on the substance if

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): If

Michael Knowles: you'd like you me would to

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): like

Mehdi Hasan: but he

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): to,

Mehdi Hasan: won't answer

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): you have one

Mehdi Hasan: my question.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): minute to respond however you

Michael Knowles: so

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): see fit.

Michael Knowles: obviously Medi is being very very dishonest President Trump didn't didn't pardon anybody for pedophilia or Nazism

Mehdi Hasan: Just for

Michael Knowles: or

Mehdi Hasan: a

Michael Knowles: whatever

Mehdi Hasan: second,

Michael Knowles: nonsense

Mehdi Hasan: for the substance.

Michael Knowles: if you'll allow me to finish Uh so what what he pardoned them for is because there was a massive prosecution of thousands of people on January 6th that was uh politically motivated that was disproportionate because the federal government had let all of the leftist rioters who unlike the January 6thers killed dozens of people and it resulted in over a billion dollars worth of property damage let them off the hook and in fact raised money to bail them out of out of jail. And so because of the unjust prosecutions where you had Midwestern grannies who were not pedophiles or Nazis, but who were eccentric ladies

SPEAKER_19: What about

Michael Knowles: who walked

SPEAKER_19: the

Michael Knowles: around excuse

SPEAKER_19: war

SPEAKER_20: No

SPEAKER_19: on

Michael Knowles: me,

SPEAKER_19: drugs?

SPEAKER_20: interruption.

SPEAKER_19: Who-who

Michael Knowles: who who excuse me, who walked around the Capitol despite all of the lies suggesting the police officers were killed. If that was not true, the coroners proved that. Uh it so he he recognized that there was disproportionate prosecution. The same goes for the the pro-life grannies who were arrested by Joe Biden, who were imprisoned for praying at abortion clinics. President Trump pardoned them. Now, on the pardon power, look there are lots of bad pardons that go on. Joe Biden uh took it to an egregious degree. But the pardon power is absolute, and if we're here to defend the Constitution, we would have to defend the plain words of Article II which say the President has the pardon power.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Okay. Thank you both. Um I appreciate the sentiments. We're gonna keep interruptions to a minimum. Would you like to?

Michael Knowles: Okay.

SPEAKER_23: Why yes?

Michael Knowles: To be fair, it wasn't interruption. I gave up my time to ask a question. He didn't answer it six times. Okay, first off, Mehdi, big fan. Big fan.

SPEAKER_24: Thank you.

Michael Knowles: I love your work. Uh to Michael, I would like to say

Questioner 2: So there is a new, I think with your uh assault on free speech and how we should s in your words tighten, uh there is a new act proposed by Congress, the Momdani Act? If are you familiar with that?

Michael Knowles: I'm not, but I like the So sound of it.

Questioner 2: it is the it is the measures against m uh measures against Marxism's defendants and noxious Islamists Act.

Michael Knowles: Uh Uh-huh.

Questioner 2: I and it and it essentially extends the power of the federal government, especially by Trump to deny citizenship to deny uh entry enter essentially deport to go to these ice, you know horrible camps any person who is a radical Islamist or a communist or any other sort of leftist because very broad powers do you support that and is that constitutional at all

Michael Knowles: Well, I love the acronym and I take it from your description of the act when you mentioned that this would be a way to deport people, to deny them visas, to deny them entry to schools, that the people we're talking about here... are not American citizens. So it's really crucial to recognize here a point that has been glossed over, which is that when Mehdi Hassan says that the Trump administration is arresting students for stating their opinions, even if they're radical left-wing opinions, he's not arresting American citizens. What the Secretary of State came out and said is that they are going to revoke or deny visas to people who have views that are contrary to the American national interest, which is not only entirely constitutional. constitutional. That is just plain common sense. You don't want to bring in foreigners who have no right to be in your country who who actively undermine your society. I mean that's the most basic charge of immigration. So uh i i and then and then to your point you say uh we're going to even deport some people. Well to deport those people implies that they have no right to be here, that is they're not American citizens. And in that case yes, I favour deportations quite broadly. And uh the fact that it has that beautiful acronym is a cherry on top. on top I am calling with with very little knowledge beyond what you've just suggested about the act I am calling on Congress today to pass it to find a pass it twice

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): May

Michael Knowles: Can I respond? So Yeah, it's interesting that Michael again says many a son thinks foreign students having their rights deprived. No, William Young, a veteran Reagan judge, said it was a full-throated assault on the First Amendment. He said I'm going to answer the constitutional question posed here, which is do legal immigrants have the same constitutional rights to free speech as citizens? Yes, they do, he said. These are his words. Yes, they do. There is no invidious distinction that Trump makes. His words. jurisprudence history does not back that in fact go back to 1945 bridges versus wicks and famous supreme court case where they said immigrants here in the country have the same first amendment rights as everyone else and these are not students who are you know trying to undermine america romesa osterk is a student from turkey who wrote an op-ed in a newspaper saying i think my university should divest from israel that's what she wrote said nothing about the united states of america said nothing violent masked men grabbed her off the street have you seen the video It's one of the creepiest things you will ever see. A bunch of masked men with no IDs grab this young woman off the street and they imprison her. And my goodness, it's totally constitutional. Actually, the law that Rubio is citing, it's 1952 law, obscure amendment. Do you know who said it was unconstitutional? A woman called Judge Marianne Trump Barry. Donald Trump's late sister is the only judge to ever adjudicate on this. And she said, I think it's unconstitutional. Never reached the Supreme Court, but it's the only time an American judge has looked at it and they think what Marco Rubio is doing. doing Trump's late sister thinks it's unconstitutional, a Reagan judge thinks it's an assault on the First Amendment, so let's not stop pretending this is about the left and about Muslims and about socialists. No it's not. I've already pointed out Mike Pence disagree with you, Ben Shapiro disagrees with you, Reagan judges disagree with you, Trump judges disagree with you, the Supreme Court disagrees with you and I hope the audience tonight disagrees with you. Yeah, maybe Mike Pence should have come here tonight. I don't know. Why am I... Just to clarify, like I like Mike Pence as much as the next guy, but I'm not like... He's not my bosom buddy. I don't know. We don't sit up text... I don't know why He Medi... was only the vice president for Yeah, four years Medi keeps bringing To him Donald up. Trump But anyway, I guess the question I would ask for Medi, and just as you offered me some of your time, I'll ask you this. Do you think that foreign students who would apply for a student visa to the United States... do you think that they have some right to that visa? No, I don't think they have the right to the visa. But I agree That's with Jo the question. but I agree That's with no! what we're It's not the that's question. what we're all that I'm No it's reclaiming not. my time. No, So it's not. We're not in Congress. hold on hold on I'm reclaiming I'm answering my time. the question. No, No, it's you not you a right you're to have a visa, but it is right to have free speech once you're in the country under the First Amendment, per Justice Murphy's ruling in Bridges versus Wixon, nineteen forty five. Once you're in You're the country taking up you all my have time. the same rights. You're taking up all my time 'cause you're filibustering. We're not As talking you did. about we're Six not a we're I answered your question. not we're not talking Do you support do you support Donald about hold Trump's pardon? on my time. A a violent

SPEAKER_26: My time is

Michael Knowles: offender,

SPEAKER_26: receding, receding.

Michael Knowles: seven times.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): We will Re-set your time.

Michael Knowles: Yeah, go

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): You

Michael Knowles: ahead.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): can start for

Michael Knowles: I

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): the week.

Michael Knowles: appreciate that. This is why, you know, just to loop back a little bit, this is why it's so funny that Mediasan takes issue with the arrest of Don Lemon, because Don Lemon was arrested claiming First Amendment rights, but you don't have a First Amendment right when you were actively violating the First Amendment rights of others, All right. which is something that Medias clearly very familiar with. And Medias just admitted the point, and he keeps dishonestly trying to conflate legal immigrants in the United States. with students who are here on visas from some foreign country. That is And, an illegal but he's already granted the premise, and the uh he's granted the point, which is that the students do not have a right, Yes, they a do. constitutional right or A couple otherwise. of words in my Excuse mouth, me, hold yes, on, they do. I I'm not putting words in your mouth, I'm telling the truth to the students. That that a foreign student who would like to study in the United States That's in Dartmouth right. or elsewhere has no right to do so. No natural right, no constitutional right, no legal right to that visa. That visa is a is a privilege granted to the United States. Mehdi and others might want to blow open our borders and tell everybody Others around being the the Supreme world that Court. they're permitted to come here. You already granted the point, Mehdi, that a foreign student who wishes to come here does not have a right But to that once visa, they're here, and I'm confirming they have First Amendment rights, it. which you keep ignoring because the Supreme Court is against you, Michael, as it has been all night.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Alright, thank you for your time. In the interest of time, we're going to move on to the next question.

SPEAKER_27: Hello. Um I have a couple well I have one main question, but I think that it lends to a lot of what this argument has been about and I think a lot of where the argument has gone instead of maybe where it should have been. I'm been really interested and I'm curious to know, because Mehdi as you pointed out, there are some moments where the argument has moved as opposed to does the president have the right Is it constitutional that the President say, take Nigeria, for example, did he have the right to strike Nigeria? Instead, the question has become, is there a genocide in Nigeria, should the President have, you know, stricken Nigeria? I'm curious to know whether or not it is constitutional. If there is a matter, say in Nigeria or elsewhere, where the president might personally view um there to be some kind of situation, do you believe that the president does have the right or in some cases should, in your personal opinion, violate the constitution? Do you believe that there are moments where the president has that right or should? And following that, what is the point of the Constitution if you believe that the president should or has the right to violate it?

Michael Knowles: Was that question for me or Mehdi?

SPEAKER_27: for you, but

Michael Knowles: Okay.

SPEAKER_27: I would also

Michael Knowles: Yeah,

SPEAKER_27: like

Michael Knowles: yeah, sure. Well, I suppose I just disagree with the premise, the suggestion that the president taking a military action around the world violates the Constitution. It does not. In the case of an intervention in Nigeria, one could make an argument that it pertains to American interests because we're the global empire and we have interests around the world. But one could also just make that it's a humanitarian intervention, and indeed that was much of the argument that presidents have made for made for many decades now. Barack Obama made it, Bill Clinton made it, and furthermore, you know, the Monroe Doctrine, which we were discussing earlier in the case of Venezuela, which has been the cornerstone of American foreign policy since the early 19th century, does not have a literal, direct constitutional predicate, and yet no serious person would suggest that it's somehow contrary to the Constitution. So I think it would be, it would be contrary to the Constitution. Constitution. If the President went and toppled the regime in Nigeria and made it the 51st state, which I don't think any of us want to do, or if the military action went on for more than 60 or 90 days without authorization from Congress, as we saw in the cases of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, but a relatively minor military action for national interest or even for humanitarian reasons is well within the constitutional mainstream. There's nothing prohibiting the President from doing that. and and indeed he is he has the right to do that as the commander in chief of of the military. Um you know uh w I guess one issue one topic that we haven't really gotten to, but it it does sit at the at the foundation of a lot of the debate tonight, is is what the executive really is. Uh and and so uh this gets back to article two section one, which in the very first line explains what the executive is. And and our our framers said that the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. The courts have ruled on this many times. You know, there are all sorts of interesting discussions about Inspectors General and all other branches of government trying to involve themselves in the executive branch. But time and time and time again we recognize that the executive has broad authority. And in our day and age, a lot of people are worried about an overreach from the executive branch. executive. But I I don't think that's really serious. Uh first of all Congress gave away a lot of its authority by establishing the uh agencies in the executive a hundred years ago. But furthermore if any branch is going to be uh uh overstepping it's probably going to be the the judiciary. So uh uh uh he has a constitutional predicate to do it. Again, we can we can disagree over the prudence of a strike on Nigeria, but that's not the topic on which you're voting tonight. The question is very basic, is Trump within the constitution. constitutional mainstream, and the answer is yes. That's not a question of if he's within the mainstream. Is he upholding the Constitution, yes or no, and he's clearly not. Uh what's interesting is Michael again made a weird concession there. He said he hasn't gone over sixty days in the case of Nigeria, but he has in Iran. He hasn't. He has in Iran. He He crossed crossed it he crossed it last Friday. but Um the the we I know I know my I know I struggle with British English, you c maybe struggle with Math. No, we're sixty in the same days spot. was last Friday. We crossed it. Donald Trump wrote a letter. Saying hostilities are terminated,

SPEAKER_28: Yeah?

Michael Knowles: and then on Monday there was exchange of fire between America and Iran, which is a reminder of what a liar and a fool he is. Um so no, he crossed sixty days, it's an illegal war, uh it was already illegal war, now it's a doubly illegal war under the War Powers Act. Um and just I'm glad you raised the issue of executive power, I'm glad you raised the question of what is the constitution for. I'm not a, I'm not a blind fan of everything in the constitution, no one is. And we shouldn't be. It there's amendments for a reason.

SPEAKER_28: Hmm.

Michael Knowles: Michael, you wanna change the flag burning thing, right? You want an amendment to change it.

SPEAKER_28: We don't need an amendment.

Michael Knowles: an amendment to change it. But But you I want to get rid of wouldn't 1984. mind if there were clarification, Okay. yeah. And many of us on the left would like some reinterpretation of Second Amendment, some kind of, I think that's fair to say. But the point is, you do it the right way. I'm not saying that Joe, I'm not a fan of Second Amendment. Doesn't mean Joe Biden can come and just strike down the Second Amendment. By the way, Donald Trump came in and said, you can't have guns, he said after Alex Petty was killed. Can you imagine what Michael would have said if Joe Biden had said you can't have guns? By the way, notice that Republicans are always is fine with executive power when it's a Republican in the White House. When it's a Democrat in the White House, they're screaming from the hilltops about overreach. Yep. Ted Cruz called Barack Obama a tyrant. Mike Huckabee called him a dictator. Donald Trump said Biden was leading a Gestapo administration. They said Obama did too many executive orders. Biden governed by executive order. Well, Donald Trump has done 100 more executive orders in 18 months than Joe Biden did in four years. He's done almost as many executive orders in 18 months as Obama did in eight years. So this nonsensical position that we're fine with executive power, no you're not. You're fine with a Republican dictator. You just don't want Democrats to have any power. And I think you should be honest about that. People will have more respect for your views on the Constitution if you were consistent and not just a partisan. Really it's interesting that Mehdi brings up President Trump's executive orders because I seem to recall a journalist by the name of Mehdi Hassan who in early 2021 was begging on television for Joe Biden to issue many many more executive orders Yeah. and I believe that this Mr. Hassan was was asking him to follow the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt who issued thousands of executive orders which were so relentlessly And struck your down side was attacking Biden for that. Open for that. That's my point, that he wanted more from him. But Trump has exceeded Biden and Obama, and

Questioner 2: But

Michael Knowles: you were the guy's

Questioner 2: do

Michael Knowles: up you selling

Questioner 2: want more?

Michael Knowles: him.

Questioner 2: You're saying,

Michael Knowles: Like

Questioner 2: hold

Michael Knowles: today

Questioner 2: on.

Michael Knowles: you say judges overstepped,

Questioner 2: But do you want more executive

Michael Knowles: in 2022

Questioner 2: orders or fewer?

Michael Knowles: when a Florida judge shut down the mask mandate, COVID mask

Questioner 2: Can I

Michael Knowles: mandate,

Questioner 2: rephrase my question,

Michael Knowles: Michael Noem,

Questioner 2: because I

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): He

Michael Knowles: Michael

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): keeps interrupting.

Michael Knowles: Noem's tweeted, since we're quoting each other, Michael Noem's tweeted in 2022, the hero judge struck down Biden's mask mandate. When you are a Republican judge who strikes down a Democrat's policy, you're a hero. When you're a Republican judge who strikes down a Republican president, as many have, I've named them all. in the more tonight or then it's judicial overreach.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): This

Michael Knowles: See

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): is Michael's

Michael Knowles: the double standard?

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): time.

Michael Knowles: Yeah, this Once is. again, Michael's time. Defending the First Amendment yet again. So anyway, to the point I was saying. Mehdi was very, very upset that Joe Biden wasn't issuing more executive orders and he said he has to follow FDR who issued thousands which were so relentlessly struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional that FDR promised to totally reconstitute the court for the first time in 70 years. and oh only because a judge back down uh w was was that averted. Uh nevertheless you make a good point, yes, Republicans and Democrats are different, uh their policies are different, some are good, some are bad. I want more of the good ones and fewer of the bad ones. But uh on the issue of executive authority here, there's really no question, you say I'd like to amend the Constitution, I don't think really we really need to. And on this point, on the unitary executive, on the p on the fact that the executive power is vested in in the President of the United States Let that me rebuttal. is clear as day from the Constitution, now 250 years of jurisprudence, almost 250 years of jurisprudence, and then all the way up to even the post-Watergate reforms, Inspector General Act, which acknowledges that very fact, and to Supreme Court cases since then. So the executive does have a lot of authority. I don't like it when Democrats win it and affect it, which is why I think we need to win elections. elections.

Ella Klinsky (Moderator): Key for this thought. Ready for the next question.

Questioner 2: Hi, Michael Amete. First of all, I want to say thank you so much for coming up here to hand over to debate. This question is directed at you, Michael. I wanted to say that as a Republican, I am naturally inclined to agree with you that Donald Trump has acted within constitutional norms, but for his behaviour leading up to but not including January 6th. And I wanted to ask you, how do you reconcile his behaviour, particularly with regards to trying to influence Brad Raffensperger and secure electors from Georgia with

Michael Knowles: Yeah.

Questioner 2: the constitutional separation of powers between the state and federal government, especially with the right of states to conduct their own elections.

Michael Knowles: Yeah, really good question, because, again, happily, my I hope impending victory in the debate does not rest on what you think of any of these individual actions. It's really just a question of is Trump upholding the Constitution and what that even means, which is, of course.

Events Director:: how the Constitution is obtained throughout history. And so there was a lot of predicate for this, for contested elections. I guess the first question you have to ask is, was there reason to be a little skeptical of the presidential election in 2020? And I think the fact that they changed all the voter rolls and took away a lot of the safeguards and in some cases violated a state constitution, as we saw in Pennsylvania, and then delayed the counts. I think there was at least a reasonable person might have some questions about

Michael Knowles: about about the election. Uh it was this the first time in American history that there were lawsuits over presidential elections? Certainly not. Was this the first time in presidential uh history that there was a question over who the legitimate electors would be? Certainly not. Indeed, our Constitution uh pre-empts that and and recognizes that there will be questions. That's the whole point of the Twelfth Amendment. So uh uh again, you know, the President Trump's rhetoric was uh much more moderate actually than he's given given credit for even on the day of January 6th himself part of the reason that the the Democrats kept failing in all of these cases one he was obviously exonerated as an at his impeachment trial over this but then two they couldn't kick him off of the ballot when they tried to undermine democracy on the this insurrection point that that too was thrown out because he didn't do it and his words were very clear which is he said you should peaceably assemble this was well within the Brandenburg a standard on on speech and violence and uh so you know his his actions uh could be uh imprudent his actions you could say were reckless you could say his actions did not have a reasonable probability of success uh you could say all of those things and all of those criticisms are perfectly fine to make the one thing you can't say is that it's it's out of the norm

SPEAKER_30: Yes.

Michael Knowles: for for constitutional uh behavior in the united states

Events Director:: Yes.

SPEAKER_31: Ready?

Mehdi Hasan: Can you imagine going back to January 6th 2021 and hearing Michael say that? No one in America believe that. The Republican Party didn't believe that. Kevin McCarthy didn't believe that. He said it was an insurrection.

Michael Knowles: What did Mike Pence say?

Mehdi Hasan: Mitch McCarthy, Mike Pence. Let's go to Mike Pence. He said President Trump demanded that I put the Constitution above Donald Trump. He became the first modern vice president not to endorse the president because that's what he thought of as a threat to the Constitution. Ask yourself, who knows Trump better, Michael Knowles or the people who served within much of his first cabinet who refused to endorse him a second time, his chief of staff, his defense secretary, his national security

Michael Knowles: We fired

Mehdi Hasan: advisor,

Michael Knowles: a

Mehdi Hasan: his

Michael Knowles: lot of vice people.

Mehdi Hasan: president. He also appointed them and said they're amazing. amazing when he appointed them. So let's talk about January 6th and the run up to January 6th. There was the fake elector scheme, multiple people indicted. Trump's own lawyer was convicted for that. Michael says, well, people in, you know, it was thrown out of court. Let's be clear, Donald Trump never saw the inside of a courtroom for his crimes on January 6th because

Michael Knowles: He

Mehdi Hasan: Joe

Michael Knowles: was impeached,

Mehdi Hasan: Biden and Merrick

Michael Knowles: wasn't

Mehdi Hasan: Garland...

Michael Knowles: he?

Mehdi Hasan: Were not like Donald Trump and Pam Bondi and didn't go after their political opponents. They were super slow. They dragged their feet They appointed Jack Smith 667 days after they came to office compare that to Donald Trump who's gone after John Brennan and Jim Comey and you're all the rest Tish James all thrown out by judges saying this is ridiculous This is the difference but Democrats weaponizing government some of us say we wish Trump got away with it because he never saw the inside of a courtroom Jack Smith had to end all that because Trump got re-elected and DOJ guidelines say you can't indict a sitting president so we don't know but we saw the evidence we know that Trump was lying Trump knew he was lying if you and I called Brad Raffensberger and said find us 11,000 votes we'd be in prison let's just be very clear about that the only reason he's not is because he's Donald Trump he committed multiple crimes in the run-up to January 6th he told his DOJ he wrote a note to his DOJ just say it's corrupt say it's stolen and me and the Republicans in Congress will deal with it that's on the record, right? People around him say we told him it wasn't stolen. He knew it wasn't stolen. Kellyanne Conway has said that. And yet he still did this, he still incited a riot at the Capitol and 140 police officers were injured and Michael will not say tonight whether it was wrong of Donald Trump to pardon 600 people No, who were charged

Michael Knowles: he's not

Mehdi Hasan: with

Michael Knowles: wrong.

Mehdi Hasan: a

Michael Knowles: I've said many

Mehdi Hasan: s he talked

Michael Knowles: times

Mehdi Hasan: about grannies.

Michael Knowles: he's not wrong. I totally support the

Mehdi Hasan: You

Michael Knowles: pardons.

Mehdi Hasan: support pardoning men who assaulted police officers like Daniel Rodriguez.

Michael Knowles: I support the pardons. for January 6th.

Mehdi Hasan: Do you support pardoning Daniel

Michael Knowles: Yeah, I Rod I

Mehdi Hasan: or do you oppose?

Michael Knowles: I oppose pedophilia. I oppose beating your

Mehdi Hasan: What

Michael Knowles: wife.

Mehdi Hasan: about I what

Michael Knowles: oppose

Mehdi Hasan: about

Michael Knowles: every

Mehdi Hasan: Daniel

Michael Knowles: other

Mehdi Hasan: Rodriguez?

Michael Knowles: thing you wanna talk

Mehdi Hasan: Do you support

Michael Knowles: about.

Mehdi Hasan: pardoning Daniel Rodriguez who assaulted a police officer I went I to prison

Michael Knowles: support

Mehdi Hasan: for twelve

Michael Knowles: parole

Mehdi Hasan: years?

Michael Knowles: for January 6th.

Mehdi Hasan: Why why do you support pardoning Daniel

Michael Knowles: Because

Mehdi Hasan: Rodriguez?

Michael Knowles: uh well as I explained in my very lengthy answer

Mehdi Hasan: You talked

Michael Knowles: earlier,

Mehdi Hasan: about grannies. I'm talking

Michael Knowles: yeah.

Mehdi Hasan: about a

Michael Knowles: Because

Mehdi Hasan: man who is

SPEAKER_33: Unfortunately,

Mehdi Hasan: sentenced and

SPEAKER_33: we have a limited

Michael Knowles: I didn't

SPEAKER_33: time.

Mehdi Hasan: Daniel

Michael Knowles: get your answer.

Mehdi Hasan: keeps coming to rescue you

SPEAKER_33: I'm

Mehdi Hasan: eight times I tried.

Michael Knowles: Yeah, and I answered. I

Mehdi Hasan: You

Michael Knowles: answered

Mehdi Hasan: didn't.

Michael Knowles: you many times.

SPEAKER_33: You have

Mehdi Hasan: Do you support

SPEAKER_33: one

Mehdi Hasan: pardon?

SPEAKER_33: minute.

Michael Knowles: Thank

SPEAKER_33: You're welcome

Michael Knowles: you very

Mehdi Hasan: Daniel

SPEAKER_33: to answer.

Michael Knowles: much. I don't know if many will Mehdi will allow me to have my minute. So Mehdi just

Mehdi Hasan: But why

Michael Knowles: said something

Mehdi Hasan: does he get more

Michael Knowles: that yet

Mehdi Hasan: time

Michael Knowles: again

Mehdi Hasan: in the

Michael Knowles: the

Mehdi Hasan: Q&A? That was before.

Michael Knowles: We all

Questioner 3: The

Michael Knowles: it was all

Questioner 3: other

Michael Knowles: about.

Questioner 3: two can go to you first,

Mehdi Hasan: Okay.

Questioner 3: whoever

Michael Knowles: Yes, you they have

Questioner 3: got

Michael Knowles: too

Questioner 3: out.

Michael Knowles: many questions for me is the problem. So Mehdi just said something yet again that is not true. Mehdi just said that President Trump never saw the inside of a courtroom for his actions on January 6th. Mehdi must be suffering from a little bit of amnesia because last time I checked President Trump was indeed tried for his. his supposed crime on January 6th. He was tried in precisely the way a President of the United States is tried. He was impeached for it and then he was exonerated. He was not convicted for the crime at the Senate trial.

Mehdi Hasan: I'm being

Michael Knowles: But

Mehdi Hasan: bipartisan.

Michael Knowles: to your point,

Mehdi Hasan: come

Michael Knowles: but to your point,

Mehdi Hasan: on.

Michael Knowles: to your point, once he left office,

Mehdi Hasan: He

Michael Knowles: he

Mehdi Hasan: did not

Michael Knowles: was

Mehdi Hasan: see

Michael Knowles: once

Mehdi Hasan: a court.

Michael Knowles: again, he was once again prosecuted for this. Jack Smith went after him, as you rightly point out, but you're conflating two cases because then he was, it also went to trial one more time when the States tried to kick him off the ballot. ballot for supposedly committing an insurrection. Both of those cases flopped just like the impeachment flopped where he was exonerated. So three times

Mehdi Hasan: He was

Michael Knowles: this indicted. was brought this was brought to courts, one being the special court of the impeachment court, three times it was brought to courts and all three times

Mehdi Hasan: There

Michael Knowles: it was

Mehdi Hasan: was

Michael Knowles: flopped.

Mehdi Hasan: never a trial, Michael. You are lying if you say there was a trial

Michael Knowles: of Impeachment

Mehdi Hasan: Donald Trump.

Michael Knowles: is

Mehdi Hasan: For

Michael Knowles: a trial,

Mehdi Hasan: what happened on January

Michael Knowles: Jenny.

Mehdi Hasan: 6th.

Michael Knowles: You might not be familiar with our justice

Mehdi Hasan: In

Michael Knowles: system.

Mehdi Hasan: Georgia and in Washington,

Michael Knowles: With

Mehdi Hasan: D.C.

Michael Knowles: the guns and to in seize

Mehdi Hasan: Florida,

Michael Knowles: him.

Mehdi Hasan: there were no trials. It is a lie to say there was a trial of

Questioner 3: Okay,

Mehdi Hasan: we Donald

Questioner 3: have time for two more. for audience Q&As. We'll start with Mehdi. I think we're going to start over here.

SPEAKER_35: Awesome. Yeah. And I think we might be nearing one question. Yeah. And all right. Well.

Questioner 4: MediSolve, it's a privilege to see you speak here in person.

Michael Knowles: Thank you.

Questioner 4: Uh my question, given the precedent, very recently Donald Trump posted a picture of himself, an AI-generated picture of himself depicting himself as Jesus.

Michael Knowles: Yes.

Questioner 4: My question to Michael first, given the Senate Judiciary hearing recently, do you believe that Donald Trump can run as uh for a third term and be elected as President, yes or no, given the Twenty-Second Amendment? And m the response I'd love from Mehdi is what would bypassing said amendment look and look like given the President's said

Mehdi Hasan: What would

Questioner 4: by the

Mehdi Hasan: sorry?

Questioner 4: said What would bypassing said amendment look like given the precedent said by this ad administration?

Mehdi Hasan: Well, that

SPEAKER_35: And sorry, just before you guys answer, can we also as have people fill out the post debate poll as we talk um

Mehdi Hasan: The

SPEAKER_35: to debate the winner? Thanks so much.

Mehdi Hasan: my greatest fear. is 22nd Amendment violation. I've said that for a while, I'm on record. I'm not saying Donald Trump will do that, I don't do predictions anymore. I said he wouldn't win in 2016, I was wrong, I don't do political predictions. But that's my greatest fear. Is it a possibility that he will do it? Sure, I take him literally, I take him seriously. He said it just again on Monday. Oh, he's just joking they say. And then he goes on Meet the Press and he says, I'm not joking, there are ways to do it. There aren't ways to do it, it's a violation of the 22nd Amendment. Steve Bannon says we're working on a way to do it. Look, this is my big fear that this guy is a one a wannabe dictator, to quote Judge Michael Ludi, one of the most famous conservative judges in America, he is a wannabe tyrannical king. He wants to stay in power, he thinks he is God's gift. He literally, Michael earlier very shamefully tried to insinuate I'm anti-Christian because I don't accept there's a Christian genocide in Nigeria, and yet he supports a man who literally portrayed himself as Jesus, blasphemously, sacrilegiously. A man who attacked the Pope. Michael, are you Catholic?

Michael Knowles: I am.

Mehdi Hasan: Yeah, Manu attacks the Pope. I've never attacked the Pope like Donald Trump has, but such is partisanship, a hell of a drug as they say, that he won't criticise Donald Trump ever for attacking the Pope, but he'll attack me for supposedly being anti-Christian. Trump literally portrayed himself as Jesus, then pretended, said, I thought I was being a doctor. Okay, biggest liar in the world. Attack the Pope, lied about the Pope. You know what he said on Monday? He said the Pope says he wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I wonder, will Michael condemn Trump? Trump for lying about the pope. The pope has never said Iran wants to have a nuclear weapon. Donald Trump lied on Monday. You can see if Michael will answer that question tonight. I suspect he won't. Cult, he can't criticise the dear leader. So it's a real problem that we have a president who's attacking Christianity because he sees himself as Lord God. He once said, and he once retweeted someone saying he's the king of the Jews, the Lord of the world, whatever it was. He's putting out pictures of himself as Jesus. And yes, the 22nd amendment's an issue. A man who did not accept a peaceful... He still transfer of power in January 2021. Why would he accept it in 2028? Every time he's ever lost election, he claims fraud. When he lost to Michael's good friend Ted Cruz in the Iowa caucuses in 2016, he said Ted Cruz stole it. He accuses everyone. I don't know what happened in his childhood, but he really cannot handle any kind of defeat. He's a malignant narcissist. He's power crazy. And yes, there is a very real risk that just as in 2021, he tries to stay on an office. in 2020. The fact that we even have this conversation is a reason why you should vote against this motion and say he's not upholding the constitution, because he's considering violating the twenty second amendment. That in itself should be enough for Michael to lose this debate.

Michael Knowles: I'm trying to track what the question was because Mehdi took us on a journey. It involved the Pope, it involved me.

Mehdi Hasan: Hey, the question had Christianity

Michael Knowles: It was

Mehdi Hasan: and

Michael Knowles: about the

Mehdi Hasan: 22nd Amendment.

Michael Knowles: 22nd Amendment.

Mehdi Hasan: Both,

Michael Knowles: That's right. Okay,

Mehdi Hasan: both was

Michael Knowles: very in good.

Mehdi Hasan: the question.

Michael Knowles: There

Mehdi Hasan: I

Michael Knowles: we

Mehdi Hasan: know go. you don't want to talk about the Pope.

Michael Knowles: I know. Well, I was very present. I was very glad when the president took down the image of Mehdi, you know, being a little confused about things tonight seems to think I won't criticize the president. I did specifically point out that that was a sacrilegious

Mehdi Hasan: No, that's

Michael Knowles: post.

Mehdi Hasan: what I

Michael Knowles: I was

Mehdi Hasan: asked.

Michael Knowles: very

Mehdi Hasan: I said,

Michael Knowles: glad.

Mehdi Hasan: did he lie about the Pope? about the popes that one

Michael Knowles: Can

Mehdi Hasan: thing we

Michael Knowles: I

Mehdi Hasan: care

Michael Knowles: ever

Mehdi Hasan: about in

Michael Knowles: get

Mehdi Hasan: cathedrals.

Michael Knowles: a right time to answer? Are you afraid that I'm gonna

Mehdi Hasan: Did

Michael Knowles: speak?

Mehdi Hasan: he no you didn't answer my question did he lie about the pope?

Michael Knowles: I'm answering

Mehdi Hasan: Saying

Michael Knowles: his Iran's question.

Mehdi Hasan: one's nuclear weapons?

Michael Knowles: I'm not answering your question,

Mehdi Hasan: Of

Michael Knowles: I'm answering

Mehdi Hasan: course he his was,

Michael Knowles: question.

Mehdi Hasan: but you won't criticise Trump for that.

Michael Knowles: So anyway, as I just pointed out, I very publicly criticised President Trump over that post and

Mehdi Hasan: Not publicly.

Michael Knowles: it was actually featured in the international media for it. And very happily President Trump took down the post. I was very glad with that. He's also moderated his comments on the pope which I think is the right thing to do.

Mehdi Hasan: You like the Yeah. media, yes. Yesterday.

Michael Knowles: Listen, May I speak ever in this debate,

Mehdi Hasan: Sure.

Michael Knowles: Mr. Hassan?

Mehdi Hasan: You've actually spoken more of it It's in this discussion.

Michael Knowles: unbelievable. So anyway, there have been many tensions between emperors and popes going back to at least Pope Gelasius I in the 5th century, so I'm not surprised that the president's fighting with him a little bit, and I think the president's Presbyterian maybe will make him Catholic by the end. To the actual question that was asked before Mehdi's very rude interruption, the question was, will President Trump violate the 22nd Amendment? And Mehdi, who's made many very false... false predictions, including that the free press would disappear were Trump reelected. Uh Mehdi says that he's he won't leave office. And uh I'd I'd just like to point out, we know that he will because he did. He did leave office. This is not an academic question or hypothetical.

Mehdi Hasan: What

Michael Knowles: He

Mehdi Hasan: a problem.

Michael Knowles: did. He left office on time. He contested a dubious election and then he just left office on time and it was all just normal. And to the point of the 22nd Amendment, there's one president who violated the spirit of that amendment and maybe the spirit of the constitutional norm, and that is a Democrat president, FDR, who did make himself the American monarch and stayed in power until he died. But I don't know that we even really need to knock FDR for this. If the debate were, did FDR violate constitutional norms, I guess we would say he did. But it's about Donald Trump. And it's a fact that at the end of his life, President Reagan was openly campaigning in the pages of the New York Times to repeal the 22nd Amendment. You'll recognize it's the 22nd Amendment, it wasn't in there at the beginning. It's relatively recent. I think that we do have term limits. The term limits are at the ballot box. And I actually think that that the 22nd Amendment is contrary to American democracy. But much as I would like President Trump to have a third, fourth or fifth term, I don't think that it's going to happen. We will not get Octavian Augustus Baron Trump to come in after him. President Trump will leave office at the end of his end of his term because that is very much in keeping with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, which I hope I've demonstrated to you President Trump has upheld.

Mehdi Hasan: So a couple of things. I never said. You didn't criticise the Pope about the image. I follow, I see your tweets. I know you did that. I said you won't criticise him for lying about the Pope yesterday. Do you agree he lied about the Pope on Monday and said he wants Iran to have nuclear weapons?

Michael Knowles: Uh do

Mehdi Hasan: Do you agree that's a lie? The Pope doesn't want Iran to have nuclear

Michael Knowles: I don't

Mehdi Hasan: weapons.

Michael Knowles: think that the Pope wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

Mehdi Hasan: So Trump lied.

Michael Knowles: I think that President Trump and the Pope are having a disagreement from within the basis of

Mehdi Hasan: Won't

Michael Knowles: Christian do doctrine.

Mehdi Hasan: it. This is what the definition of a cult is ladies

Michael Knowles: I

Mehdi Hasan: and gentlemen.

Michael Knowles: don't think

Mehdi Hasan: Ask

Michael Knowles: he's lying.

Mehdi Hasan: me to criticise

Michael Knowles: I... no.

Mehdi Hasan: Barack Obama's lies. I will. Will happily.

Michael Knowles: I've just pointed

Mehdi Hasan: He won't

Michael Knowles: out,

Mehdi Hasan: end it.

Michael Knowles: but he's not lying because I think he believes it.

Mehdi Hasan: Okay, he doesn't believe it.

Michael Knowles: I think he does believe it.

Mehdi Hasan: The great Trump defense for 10 years. Since we're doing predictions, I already admitted my predictions are bad. But relevant to this conversation, you had a great prediction. In the summer of 2024, you tweeted, there's no reason to believe, there's no evidence to suggest that Donald Trump won't accept the results of this election. The same can't be said about his opponents. That take aged like milk in a hot desert. desert as we saw in january 6th the idea that oh he left yeah he left after exhausting every violent and non-violent option there were guardrails there was a guy we haven't talked about him tonight called mike pence who actually stood up to him you think jd vance is going to stand up to donald trump in 2028 you think the man who threw his own wife under the bus is going to stand up to donald trump in 2028 no there are no guardrails this time there's no jim mattis there's no john on Kelly. There's none of the people from the first term who were semi-adults in the room. There's Cash Patel, RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and JD Vance. If that fills you with confidence on January the 6th, 2029, go for it. Some of us will still be sceptical about a man who completely, utterly is obsessed with power, says, I have a second amendment, I have an article to write to do whatever I want, reposts quotes from Napoleon saying if you save your country, you violated no laws. laws yeah you have you're not above the law who says stuff like you know what he said to New York Times earlier this year when he was asked about international law he said my mind my morality that's the only thing that can stop me who talks like that autocrats talk like that dictators talk like that if Barack Obama talked like that these guys would have gone nuts but you know he saluted a military guy while holding a coffee and that was a huge scandal

Michael Knowles: He

Mehdi Hasan: under

Michael Knowles: also compared

Mehdi Hasan: Barack himself Obama

Michael Knowles: to God.

Mehdi Hasan: right

Michael Knowles: He you were God.

Mehdi Hasan: Donald Trump has compared himself to God. In fact, he's reposted people and he posted an image of himself as God. Classic Michael, oh, he took it down. But why did he put it up? You'll never criticise him for the original act. You'll praise him for taking it down. And Pope is a good example. He cannot handle any criticism. If it's a Supreme Court justice, they're a lapdog and a fool. If it's the Pope, he wants Iran to have nuclear weapons. He recognises no opposition. That is why he's so sui generis. That is why George Bush recognized opponents have to take a second shower tonight. George Bush recognized political opponents. Donald Trump doesn't recognize any power other than his own. That is why you should vote against this motion tonight.

Questioner 3: for sharing your time and your thoughts. We all really appreciated it. Miki's going to close this out.

SPEAKER_35: All right, please join me in thanking Michael Knowles, Mehdi Hassan, and of course Ella Klinsky for providing us with such an engaging debate tonight.

Michael Knowles: Thank you.

Mehdi Hasan: Well done. Well done. Well done.

Questioner 3: Now at this time please remain seated while our guests leave. And while you are all

Mehdi Hasan: We're getting

Questioner 3: filling

Mehdi Hasan: a result

Questioner 3: out

Mehdi Hasan: apparently.

Questioner 3: the poll, um I'd like to thank you all for coming. Having supporters

Events Director:: Oh,

Questioner 3: like

Events Director:: we don't

Questioner 3: you

Events Director:: find is out

Questioner 3: what empowers

Events Director:: what the result

Questioner 3: the

Events Director:: is.

Questioner 3: DPU to continue

Mehdi Hasan: I wanna know.

Questioner 3: its mission

Mehdi Hasan: of I wanna know.

Questioner 3: promoting

Mehdi Hasan: It's killing

Questioner 3: the free

Mehdi Hasan: me.

Questioner 3: exchange of discourse.

SPEAKER_35: Oh, can we

Questioner 3: Thank you to Michael Knowles and Mehdi Hasan again for being great debate partners. And I want to thank the office of the president for

Mehdi Hasan: Welcome.

Questioner 3: its continuous U_S_ support.

SPEAKER_35: Um

Mehdi Hasan: Yeah, I I do to them, I can't wait.

Questioner 3: And

Questioner 4: And yes,

Questioner 3: don't worry,

Questioner 4: thank you.

Questioner 3: we'll make sure you guys know the results of the poll shortly. Now I'd like to

SPEAKER_35: I

Questioner 3: take this opportunity

SPEAKER_35: will get

Questioner 3: while you that. finish showing

SPEAKER_35: I will

Questioner 3: out the

SPEAKER_35: tell

Questioner 3: Oh, poll

Questioner 4: is that

SPEAKER_35: that

Questioner 3: to

Questioner 4: made you feel better?

Questioner 3: our next

SPEAKER_35: our delegates.

Questioner 4: I think we have to leave not knowing.

Questioner 3: at five

SPEAKER_35: What?

Questioner 3: I am making

Mehdi Hasan: You think

Questioner 3: p.m.

SPEAKER_35: some rules

Mehdi Hasan: it's

Questioner 3: next

SPEAKER_35: that you

Questioner 4: Yeah,

Mehdi Hasan: I don't

SPEAKER_35: you have

Questioner 3: Wednesday.

SPEAKER_35: want to to leave.

Mehdi Hasan: have to leave not

Michael Knowles: This is painful.

Questioner 4: security rules.

Michael Knowles: I need to know.

Questioner 3: At five

SPEAKER_35: I

Questioner 3: p

SPEAKER_35: promise.

Questioner 3: .m. next

Mehdi Hasan: Seventy

Questioner 3: Wednesday.

Mehdi Hasan: eight? Or did he get me down to fifty eight

Michael Knowles: I

Questioner 3: At

Mehdi Hasan: and

Michael Knowles: know,

Mehdi Hasan: win

Michael Knowles: right?

Mehdi Hasan: the debate with

Michael Knowles: You

SPEAKER_35: The

Mehdi Hasan: you?

Michael Knowles: do start

SPEAKER_35: moment we're

Michael Knowles: an edition

SPEAKER_35: on the

Michael Knowles: third panel.

SPEAKER_35: floor I will No, tell

Mehdi Hasan: no no hundred percent,

Questioner 3: we'll be

Mehdi Hasan: but when I can think that but people are

Questioner 3: election

Mehdi Hasan: leaving?

Questioner 3: policy

Mehdi Hasan: I'm

Questioner 3: debate

Mehdi Hasan: trying to do the percentage.

Questioner 3: between LBC

Questioner 4: Those are

Questioner 3: c.

Questioner 4: the

Michael Knowles: Those

SPEAKER_35: The commissioner is Dara Lindenbaum and Alan Dickerson. In

Mehdi Hasan: I'll

SPEAKER_35: Waldman forty one.

Mehdi Hasan: take the pens and papers.

SPEAKER_35: The following evening,

Mehdi Hasan: That's not like

SPEAKER_35: Harmeet Dhillon, class of nineteen eighty-nine,

Mehdi Hasan: Oh.

SPEAKER_35: will be visiting for a moderated Q and A at five p m, Thursday, May fourteenth right here in Koch auditorium once again.

Mehdi Hasan: Okay.

SPEAKER_35: Stay tuned for more events throughout the spring. And before I begin sharing polling results, we'd like to remind everyone to stay seated, even though our guests have left. With that said, the results of our poll are almost in. As a reminder before the debate 22% of the room thought that Trump had upheld the Constitution and 78% thought Trump had not upheld the Constitution. Now when asked the same question after the debate Twenty eight percent think he has upheld the constitution and seventy two percent think he has not. So a little a couple of converts to thinking he has upheld the constitution. I'll also ask again that you remain seated for one more minute and once again please join me in giving Michael Knowles and Mehdi Hasan a round of applause. Thank you all.