On Wednesday's Anderson Cooper 360, CNN gave liberal Senator Angus King (I-ME) a forum to accuse President Donald Trump of abusing his constitutional power with his actions since taking office. And on Thursday morning, MSNBC's Morning Joe followed suit with their own interview with him entirely devoted to this topic.
In neither forum did anyone ask if he objected to any of the similarly controversial actions taken by the Barack Obama or Joe Biden administrations, or, after he brought up USAID on Morning Joe, correct his already debunked claim that the President does not have the authority to shut down the agency.
On CNN, toward the end of his interview, Cooper brought up Senator King's criticisms by showing a clip of President Trump calling out Governor Janet Mills (D-ME) for refusing to ban males from competing in female school sports. He then fretted over the President describing his administration as the "federal law" on that issue as he cued up the liberal Senator to pile on the President: "Putting aside the issue of transgender athletes, what do you make of the President threatening to withhold federal aid and the governor -- threatening the governor's career and suggesting federal law basically begins and ends with the White House?"
The Senator compared Trump to a king as he began his response:
Well, there are two problems, and you just touched on one of them. The statement, "We are the law" -- that reminds me of the king of France, you know, "I am the law." And we don't have a king here. We don't have a dictator. And the very fact that he thought that, that he said that, "We are the law," that was pretty chilling. And it tells you the direction that their thinking is going in.
He went on to accuse the President of encroaching on Congress's spending power, and suggested that he is not adhering to the constitutional requirement that he is required to "see that the laws are faithfully executed" rather than "see that the laws he likes are being faithfully executed." Where was the liberal Senator when Presidents Obama and Biden chose not to enforce immigration laws as required by law, or when President Obama created the DACA program to protect some illegal aliens, or when President Biden was accused of overreaching in enacting stricter gun restrictions beyond what was allowed by the gun control law passed in 2022.
On Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski was melodramatic as she cited Senator King's recent speech to his Republican colleagues calling for them to protect the Constitution from Trump: "We'll speak with independent Senator Angus King about his urgent message to Republicans and why he says they should take a stand to protect the Constitution."
In a second plug, she related that Senator King believes there is a "constitutional crisis." The segment began with MSNBC spending almost two minutes showing clips of the Maine Senator in a speech accusing President Trump of abusing his power, which included comparing him to the French dictator Napolean Bonaparte.
Questioners Katty Kay and Willie Geist just cued him up to expand on his criticism without any challenge. Geist played along with and bolstered King when he made a crack about House Speaker Mike Johnson's expertise in constitutional law.
When he twice complained about Trump pushing to close the USAID agency, none of those present pointed out that the President does, in fact, have the authority to do so as Fox analyst Brit Hume did on the February 3, Special Report with Bret Baier show, because the agency was originally created with an executive order during the Kennedy administration.
Transcripts follow:
CNN's Anderson Cooper 360
February 26, 2025
8:16 p.m. Eastern
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Are you not going to comply with it?
GOVERNOR JANET MILLS (D-ME): I'm complying with state and federal laws.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I am -- we are the federal law. Well, you better do it. You better do it because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't. And, by the way, your population, even though it's somewhat liberal although I did very well there -- your population doesn't want men playing in women's sports. So you better comply. You better comply because otherwise you're not getting any federal funding.
GOVERNOR MILLS: See you in court.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Good, I'll see you in court. I'll look forward to that. That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after, Governor, because I don't think you'll be in elected politics.
ANDERSON COOPER: After the exchange. [The] Trump Education Department launched an investigation into the state of Maine. Putting aside the issue of transgender athletes, what do you make of the President threatening to withhold federal aid and the governor -- threatening the governor's career and suggesting federal law basically begins and ends with the White House?
SENATOR ANGUS KING (I-ME): Well, there are two problems, and you just touched on one of them. The statement, "We are the law" -- that reminds me of the king of France, you know, "I am the law." And we don't have a king here. We don't have a dictator. And the very fact that he thought that, that he said that, "We are the law," that was pretty chilling. And it tells you the direction that their thinking is going in.
The second piece is, these are funds that are coming to Maine by virtue of laws passed by Congress and signed by President, and an appropriations bill is the law. And that gets back to the original point I was making that there's something much deeper and more important going on here, and that is the executive -- the presidency pulling the power of Congress which the Framers put there for a reason to protect our freedom, pulling it into his or her hands. In this case, it's President Trump. Listen, the basic responsibility of the President spelled out in Article II of the Constitution, and here it is. And it's a responsibility -- it's not a power -- it's a responsibility. The exact words are, "see that the laws are faithfully executed." That's in the end of Article II of the Constitution.
The President is to "see that the laws are faithfully executed." It doesn't say, "see that the laws he likes are being faithfully executed." Or "see that the laws he doesn't like aren't going to be faithfully executed." That's his job, and that's what the Constitution assigns to him, and the Constitution assigns to the Congress the power of the purse -- the power to pass laws. If he doesn't like the Department of -- the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, come to Congress and get us to repeal it. The presidency does not have the power to just arbitrarily say, "We don't like this department -- we're going to knock it out." And if we allow the President -- any President to get that power, we're in trouble, Anderson.
COOPER: All right, Angus King, I appreciate your time. Thank you.
(...)
MSNBC's Morning Joe
February 27, 2025
6:58 a.m.
MIKA BREZEZINSKI (before commercial break): We'll speak with independent Senator Angus King about his urgent message to Republicans and why he says they should take a stand to protect the Constitution.
(...)
7:38 a.m.
BRZEZINSKI (before commercial break): And, coming up, independent Senator Angus King of Maine joins us, following his speech on Capitol Hill calling out colleagues amid what he believes is a constitutional crisis. Morning Joe is back in just a moment.
(...)
7:42 a.m.
BRZEZINSKI: It's been five weeks since President Trump took office for the second time, and his administration has reshaped government on everything from law and order to the role of the free press. With that as our backdrop, our next guest took to the Senate floor last week with a message to his colleagues: It's time to wake up.
SENATOR ANGUS KING (I-ME) (from Senate floor dated February 20): This isn't just a battle between the Senate and the House and the President and they're fighting about powers -- no. The reason the Framers designed our Constitution the way they did was because they were afraid of concentrated power. (editing jump) The responsibility of the President is to take care that the laws be faithfully executed -- not write the laws, not deny the laws, not ignore the laws, not pick which laws he or she likes -- to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. That's the responsibility of the President. And right now, those laws are being ignored. (editing jump) Power was divided for a reason. There's some criticism now in the press saying that people are talking about a constitutional crisis, "They're crying wolf." No, this is a constitutional crisis. It's the most serious assault on our Constitution in the history of this country. It's the most serious assault on the very structure of our Constitution which was designed to protect our freedoms and our liberty in the history of this country. It is a constitutional crisis, and I'll tell you what makes it worse. The President and the Vice President are already hinting that they're not going to obey decisions of the courts. (editing jump) What's it going to take for us to wake up -- and when I say us, I mean this entire body -- to wake up to what's going on here? Is it going to be too late? Is it going to be when the President has created all this power and the Congress is an after thought? What's it going to take? I mean, the offenses keep piling up. (editing jump) The President over the weekend famously quoted Napolean -- "When you're saving your country, you don't have to obey any law." Wow, a President of the United States quoting Napolean about not having to obey the law.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Mmm. And independent Senator Angus King of Maine joins us now. It's great to have you back on the show, Senator. Katty Kay has the first question for you, sir. Katty?
KATTY KAY: Senator, I've know you for a long time, and you are not given to making speeches lightly like that on the floor. You choose your words carefully. What -- who were you talking to? Who was your audience? What were you trying to achieve when you stood up there on the Senate floor and spoke to your colleagues like that?
SENATOR KING: I was trying to capture the conscience of the Republican Senators because that's where the power is. They have a 53-vote majority in the Senate, and they can go to the White House and tell the President, "Slow down, this is not the way our system was designed." And they can -- they have some influence. That's what I'm really talking about. What's shocking to me is that we're not standing up for the Constitution, and when the executive -- when the President cancels a whole agency created by Congress -- whether it's [US]AID or the Consumer Finance Board or the independent agencies that were set up almost 100 years ago to protect the public as independent agencies. The Congress is not only giving up it's power, but, as I said in the speech, we're violating the fundamental structure of the Constitution which was there in order to protect -- the Framers were students of human nature, and they understood a very important principle: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Therefore, they divided power. That's what the Constitution is all about. It divides power between the President, the Congress, the courts, the states and the federal government so that nobody would have all the power because that inevitably leads to abuse.
KAY: You're an independent. You vote with Democrats, by and large, but I know you have good relationships with your Republican colleagues as well. Do you think they're open to your message? When you have your private conversations with them -- and I don't want you to disclose names -- but are you hearing -- are you hearing murmurs of disquiet?
SENATOR KING: I think -- yes. I think the answer is -- "disquiet" is a good word. I think they're uneasy -- I think many of them understand what's going on although their public posture is, "Well, the courts will protect us -- the courts will take care of us."
(...)
WILLIE GEIST: In fact, Elon Musk stood up in that cabinet meeting just yesterday and sort of laughed off what happened with Ebola, saying "Ah, we made a mistake and we fixed it." We've reported this morning the Washington Post saying that actually hasn't been fixed yet, and that money has not been put back where it needs to be to fight Ebola. Just one example. I'm just curious as to follow up on what Katty said about your fellow Senators -- Republicans -- and members of the House as well -- thinking of Speaker Mike Johnson who is a constitutional lawyer. When they say --
SENATOR KING: I wonder what constitution he's a lawyer of.
GEIST: Well, that's a fair question in many cases, going back to the 2020 election forward where he helped Donald Trump with all that. When they say, "Look, we're doing this because the country elected Donald Trump with a mandate -- we just have to carry out what he says to do" -- strikes a lot of people as a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of Congress and the checks and balances of our government. So what do you make of that argument that these men and women view their role as a rubber stamp of what Donald Trump wants, whatever it may be, and even if it violates the Constitution?
SENATOR KING: Well, I think the best answer to that is to go back to the oath that we all take. The oath isn't to a President, and it isn't to a party -- it's to the Constitution itself. And the Constitution is very clear about the division of power. In fact, the Constitution -- as I mentioned in the speech -- doesn't give the President all that much power. He -- commander-in-chief, yes. But the fundamental responsibility of the President and the Constitution is to, quote, "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." I emphasize the word "executed." It means "carry forward." It doesn't mean "write the laws, create the laws, ignore which laws you like," and for a member of Congress to say, "Well, we've got to do whatever the President says," is a fundamental misunderstanding and, in my view, a violation of our oath and our obligation to the people of this country to keep intact the division of power which is what keeps us safe.
BRZEZINKSI: Independent Senator Angus King of Maine, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. We appreciate it.
(...)
Fox's Special Report with Bret Baier
February 3, 2025
6:53 p.m.
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS ANALYST: You keep hearing that the President or his aide -- his friend Elon Musk doesn't have -- don't have the power to shut down this agency. Well, Musk doesn't have the power, but the President does. This agency was created by an executive order signed by President John F. Kennedy in November of 1961. And it was pursuant to a law, but it was separate from the law, and that's how it came into being. So if it can be created by an executive order, as it was, it can be undone by an executive order, and the President has all the legal authority he needs to do that.
That doesn't mean that foreign aid ends. It simply would presumably mean -- as Marco Rubio was suggesting in his interview earlier on this program -- that it would be administered otherwise by some other agency or taken to the State Department, with which it's supposed to work cooperatively anyway. So this may all be, to some extent, much ado about not quite as much as everybody is saying.
