Supreme Court hears case that could give Trump more power

0:00Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken? A podcast from the Mehrotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in health care so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? And, of course, is business broken? Listen wherever you get your podcasts. WBUR Podcasts. Boston. I think the removal protections have been unconstitutional from the beginning. I don't think there is such a thing as an independent agency. The president is the country's chief executive. The question before the Supreme Court today, does that mean he can fire anyone he wants for any reason?

0:52It's Monday, December 8th, and this is Here and Now, Anytime from NPR and WBR. I'm Chris Bentley. Today on the show, Trump's immigration crackdown comes to New Orleans. Also, we remember architect Frank Gehry, who designed spectacular museums and concert halls all over the world, but who started as an artist working with the cheapest materials he could find. I think he really wanted to demystify architecture, to make it not a luxury product, and to reconnect with some of the emotional qualities that it had for him. That's coming up in about 15 minutes. But first, the Supreme Court today heard a case concerning just how much power the president should have.

1:41And if they side with the Trump administration, it could upend a 90-year-old precedent. Justices have been looking at whether President Trump can fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission without cause. Not because she broke any rules or flubbed the job, but because he didn't like her decisions. During his first term, President Trump nominated Rebecca Slaughter to a Democratic seat on the FTC. But earlier this year, she got an email saying her continued service on the FTC was inconsistent with the administration's priorities. For more on the case, we called up Kim Whaley at the University of Baltimore Law School.

2:21She spoke to Robin Young. The Trump administration is arguing that the president's power over anyone within the executive branch who exercises so-called executive authority, we don't know what the definition of that is, everyone needs to be removable at will for any reason. And so that includes, and some of the more progressive justices were asking questions about this, that includes every single employee that is otherwise potentially covered by civil service protections. The idea is it's at the whim and the political discretion of the president because otherwise it's a threat to individual liberty to allow Congress to have the authority when it creates agencies to put restraints on the president's removal power, which by the way isn't even in the Constitution.

3:06But I think all the parties agreed that the president does have some constitutional removal power. Okay, so we're going to be talking about Congress in just a second, but some of the president's supporters have long believed in something called the unitary executive theory. That's a president having complete control over the executive branch. Does this fit into that desire? Yeah, I mean this dates back to President Bush during the war on terror and the torture memos, if some listeners might recall. The argument back then was as commander-in-chief, there just can't be any restraints, that there are no checks and balances on presidents during times of war.

3:42And the argument here is there's no checks and balances on presidents when you're talking about anyone within the executive branch being fired. And I think it's playing out in other aspects of this presidency through executive orders, attacks on other parts of the Constitution, the idea that the president really is special in the separation of powers. It's not a co-equal branch. It's the ultimate, the supreme branch. And I think John Sauer, the solicitor general, effectively conceded that element that the president should be special in our constitutional system, which is not historically how it's been perceived by the court.

4:17Well, but what is Rebecca Slaughter's team, the rest of the team, arguing for why she should not be fired? their argument is listen you know Congress has the power to create agencies and impose kind of restraints on how the agencies function and that there's plenty of political accountability for that through Congress and that's just how it's always been done and that granting the relief that Trump wants here would mark a massive reshifting of the structure of government it would upend many many agencies potentially people's jobs and that there's really no problem that needs fixing, that this is just the way it's always been done.

4:58And there's no need to upend it now because it's never been abused, this idea of unlimited power in its individual branch of government without the president having some kind of oversight. Well, let's listen to, for instance, here's Justice Neil Gorsuch seeming to blame Congress for, you know, kind of giving up its power. He's speaking with the Solicitor General John Sauer. General, let me suggest to you that perhaps Congress has delegated some legislative power to these agencies. Let's just hypothesize that. And let's hypothesize, too, that this court has taken a hands-off approach to that problem.

5:36So he's saying it's a problem, Congress's fault. And here's Justice Sonia Sotomayor. You're asking us to destroy the structure of government and to take away from Congress its ability to protect its idea that the government is better structured with some agencies that are independent. So, Kim, we only have a minute here, but, you know, you mentioned the Constitution. What is, you know, there's precedent. What does the Constitution say? This is really important, Robin, and that is that when you think about executive power, That's a police officer. That's a prosecutor. But what Congress has been doing is creating agencies and giving them what looks like legislative power.

6:20They make regulations. They make rules. And they've been doing that for decades and decades, understanding that they could put restraints on the president's ability to make law effectively. So what Justice Sotomayor is saying is here, like, wait, now we've created this system where the president does have power to make law through regulation. And now you're saying Congress can't, once they give them that power, restrain it in any way. So you're seeing an intersection of various parts of the Constitution, but ultimately what it means is a massive aggrandizement and lodging of power in one man in a way the system never anticipated.

6:57So after the fact, they're saying you can't take the power back now, Congress, that you've given it to the president within the branch of the executive branch, even though it's legislative and sometimes adjudicated power. He's talking about administrative judges as well. They've created this massive administrative bureaucracy. Now Trump is saying, now that you've created it, it's all mine. Well, we were obviously going to talk about this again. Kim Whaley, thank you so much. Great to be with you.

7:31Coming up next, New Orleans has become the latest city in the crosshairs of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, following cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Charlotte, North Carolina. And just like in those cities, the sweeps appear to be going beyond the government's stated goal of picking up violent criminals. Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told CNN the splashy branding that they're giving this operation is Catahoula Crunch. And we will continue whether it be 5 ,000 arrests or beyond. More after the break.

8:57Thank you. federal agents are rounding up immigrants in New Orleans. The latest focus of a federal crackdown that the government claims is targeted at violent criminals. Trump administration officials have said they want to make 5 ,000 arrests in Louisiana, but local leaders opposed to the operation say that would require detaining people with no criminal records, something that has happened in other cities where the government has deployed federal agents. ICE arrest data from the University of California Berkeley Deportation Data Project, found the vast majority of the roughly 1 ,900 people arrested in the Chicago area from early September through the middle of October had no criminal convictions.

9:40And most of the 300 or so who did were for traffic offenses, misdemeanors, or nonviolent felonies. So how's it going to play out in New Orleans? We asked Bobbie Jean Misik with Verite News. She told Robin Young, people across southern Louisiana are preparing for raids. What's kind of funny about these raids is when you, you know, in my neighborhood, right, there's a large Hispanic population, but it's not like you see Border Patrol popping out of everywhere. But we continue to get reports of different neighborhoods where we're seeing a lot of activity, especially in suburbs like Kenner, which has a larger Hispanic population, folks that are mostly from Honduras.

10:28And what I've noticed is that although I have, you know, there are a lot of Hispanic folks in my community, they're not outside. People are afraid and they're hunkering down. They're staying inside. They're not trying to leave their homes. They're not even maybe taking their kids to school. So that's kind of the vibe right Well, we remember there's so many different communities in New Orleans. We remember post the Vietnam War when a huge Vietnamese, an industrious Vietnamese population was in the city. But New Orleans has a much smaller immigrant community than other cities targeted in President Trump's deportation campaign.

11:10What are the theories behind why he's there? So, you know, President Trump has kind of focused on and alluded to sending National Guard or other federal immigration agencies down to New Orleans for several months. And that rhetoric has been really welcomed by the governor, Jeff Landry, by state legislators, and our attorney general here, who all say, you know, yes, come down. New Orleans has a major crime problem and undocumented immigrants are contributing to that problem. even though New Orleans is at a 50-year low in terms of crime rate. And as you mentioned, very few people who are arrested in these crackdowns have any criminal histories.

12:07And that AP reporting that you mentioned also said that only a third of the people that were arrested in the first few days of this crackdown here had criminal records. Right. And that AP report also pointed out that officials, federal officials, are monitoring protesters and online criticism of things like raids. Do you know more about that and how is the city responding to that? You know, I think that the local activist community, you know, they've been really active for years before this crackdown. And those are folks that the agencies are monitoring. They seem pretty prepared for this. And what I did see in that reporting was they're talking about how these groups are planning their own efforts to film activity, to film arrests from Border Patrol and ICE.

13:13And hopefully what we'll see is that they're allowed to do that and that their constitutional rights will be maintained. Sure, freedom of speech and all. We just got about a little under two minutes here. You mentioned that the governor welcomed the ICE agents and the immigration agents in. It's also a tourist town that relies on businesses running. And you talked about people being afraid to leave their homes. Is there concern about what impact this is going to have on this city that welcomes thousands of tourists every day? Well, it's funny you mentioned that. The New York Times reported a story today about the ripple effect of this operation on the local restaurant industry that relies so heavily on immigrant labor.

14:05Dishwashers, prep cooks, line cooks, delivery drivers are not showing up for work. And we're only a week into this operation, less than a week really, and you're seeing that that has a ripple effect. There are certain items on menus that people aren't able to get. There are some restaurants that aren't offering certain items because their employees are too afraid to go to the stores and the markets where they need to pick those up. And one local grocery store chain that caters to a Hispanic clientele posted on its Facebook page that it had to stop deliveries due to overwhelming demand. And, you know, we believe that demand is coming from people who are unwilling to leave their homes in this time.

14:53Yeah. Yeah. And there are, you know, we've reported there are several Hispanic owned businesses that are closing for a while. Bobby Jean Misik, who covers immigration for Verite News there in New Orleans. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

15:15Frank Gehry was a household name in a field where there's not a whole lot of those. He was a starcatect with a reputation for buildings that dazzled people around the world. And when I think about the buildings of his that I've been lucky enough to visit, I think of spectacular museums and concert halls. The Fondation Louis Vuitton Museum in Paris, which looks like a flower bud unfolding as huge swaths of glass. Or the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago, where I live. A monumental stage for free, public concerts, framed by an explosion of curled steel that seems to capture the spontaneous energy of a live performance.

15:56But for decades before he was famous enough to get those commissions, Gary was a subversive artist, battling the establishment, working with everyday materials like chain-link fencing and making a statement that would go on to reshape the world of architecture. After the break, Robin Young remembers Frank Gehry, who died last week.

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17:33I was in Santa Monica, California over the weekend. Everyone was going over to 1002 22nd Street, the house that now late architect Frank Geary built. It enraged neighbors at first, all chain-link fence and corrugated metals wrapped around an old pink bungalow. But now it's a tourist attraction, and people certainly flocked to it on Saturday after hearing that Frank Geary, whose designs reshaped modern architecture, died Friday at the age of 96. He was born Frank Goldberg to a working-class family in Toronto. He went on to dazzle people around the world with sculptural, monumental buildings that seem to tumble through the air.

18:12Buildings like the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago. Design critic Alexandra Lang is here to help us reflect on Frank Gehry. And Alexandra, I know you know that house in Santa Monica. I do, I do. It's a wonderful house. I heard people were sticking flowers in the gate. Can you describe it to people? because some say that this was the first time he really demonstrated who he was going to be. I think that's true. The house is so great because he took this very ordinary house that you could see really in any suburb in America in the post-war period, and he completely took it apart.

18:54It was like he said, we don't need to live in that kind of house anymore. I'm going to take all these ordinary materials that I spotted on construction sites around the neighborhood, and I'm going to make them into something fantastic. Well, and he talked about other architecture at the time, you know, as modern architecture was starting and, you know, homes that were perfect and set out in gorgeous landscapes. And he said, I would just feel like I'd have to pick up my clothes all the time. He just wanted to, you know, kind of be explosive. And as he said, use dumb, normal materials of the neighborhood.

19:29He said there must have been a half dozen cars in deconstruction sitting around on lawns. There was chain link in people's backyards. That's what I wanted to use. Yeah, I think he really wanted to demystify architecture to make it not a luxury product and to reconnect with some of the emotional qualities that it had for him. And then I think it had in a time when architecture had become a little less precise and refined. There were a lot of people in the 70s who were looking for a way out of modernism and who are reacting in some respects to the sense of crisis in America in the 70s. And I think his house and his architecture were a reaction to both of those things and was also deeply personal.

20:18Yeah. Yeah. Because he said that and we mentioned that he grew up near poverty in Canada. And even when they moved, his family moved to L.A., they had a$50 a month rental. he said that the things that you see that he saw around his home growing up, he wanted to claim them as beautiful. Yeah. I mean, you see that even in a lot of his later work that deals with fish motifs. He tells the story over and over. His grandmother kept a carp in the bathtub to make gefilte fish with, a very classic, you know, kind of Jewish experience. And he made fish sculptures. He made a building in Kobe, Japan that looked like a fish.

21:01But obviously, you know, once you get into the realm of sculpture and architecture, you know, you are using expensive materials, you are spending a lot of money. But he was saying, you don't need to have had these amazing, you know, expensive experiences to have, you know, a personal life that can then be translated into architecture. Yeah. Talk about some of the other buildings. I'm thinking of the Dancing House building in Prague, which is called Ginger and Fred. Yeah, that's such a wonderful building. That's a series of two, you know, kind of narrow, not skyscrapers, but mid-rise buildings.

21:37And one of them at the corner is sort of upright and solid. And then the one next to it just sways into it and is made of glass and steel. And they're called the Ginger and Fred buildings because there's a sense in which it's Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing together, this couple just coming together in this very sensual way. And that, again, is something you don't typically see in architecture, that sensuality, that sense of the body. And a lot of people read that into many of his buildings, including the Guggenheim Bilbao, which New York Times architecture critic Herbert Mouchant famously compared to Marilyn Monroe in her dress, you know, blowing up above the subway vent.

22:21Well, you know, there seemed to be a shift then. And I'm wondering if you note that too, because we talk about the early stuff where, you know, Frank Geary is putting up chain link fence. And, you know, he said he used to work with nuts and bolts in a hardware store when he was a kid. And he saw the beauty in that. And he also had a very disruptive life. He had a fight with his father on the front lawn and his father had a heart attack that stayed with him. They tip into near poverty, moved to L.A. It seemed as if a lot of what he was doing then was disruptive, was maybe reflecting, as you said, what was going on in the world, but also his own family and some of the stuff he'd seen, architecture that someone called, it looked like a couple fighting, you know, one thing that was thrown together.

23:05But then did it get more elegant? Yeah. I mean, I think, especially through the first even, you know, 30 years of his career, he always felt like he was battling, you know, kind of battling to find his own voice, to find his place in architecture, battling against the establishment, you know, once he started using these rough and ready materials. And by the time the Guggenheim Bilbao came around, obviously he had enough of a reputation to have this, you know, world-class museum and its director come to him for architecture. And I think at that point he understood that, you know, he had to make it bigger, you know, make it more spectacular without losing some of the, you know, kind of forms and roughness that had originally made him an original architect.

23:57And I think, yeah, with the Guggenheim Heim-Bilbao, he definitely managed to do that. Well, Frank Gehry was on Here Now in 2020, and we asked what advice he had for young architects. You know, when I started class with students, I ask them to write their signature, and they each write their signature. And I spread them out, and I say, look, you all have a different aesthetic when you write your signature. That's you, that's you, that's you, that's you. So there is a you that comes naturally. So stick with it. A you that comes naturally. I love that. Yeah. I mean, every building that he did was him.

24:38Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I would say that some architects try to do that and they can't pull it off, but he definitely pulled it off. Yeah. Frank Gehry worked into his 90s. There's a museum of his under construction in Taiwan right now. But he has left, died at the age of 96. Design critic Alexander Lang, thank you for helping us remember his remarkable work. And again, we'll have pictures at hereandnow.org. Thanks for having me.

25:09That's our show for today. Here and Now, Anytime comes from NPR and WBUR Boston. Today's stories were produced by Jill Ryan, Sam Raffleson, Hapsa Qureshi, and me, Chris Bentley. Our editors were Todd Munt, Micaela Rodriguez, Michael Scotto, and Kat Welch. Technical direction from Marcel Damiano and Andre Peralta. I wrote the theme music along with Mike Moschetto and Max Liebman. Our digital producers are Allison Hagen and Grace Griffin. Here and Now's executive producer is Alan Price. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with you tomorrow.