'He Pushes The Envelope': Paul Gives Blunt Take On Trump Provoking Separation Of Powers Questions

At today's Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) discussed President Trump's actions firing government employees.

Transcript

00:00You know, I think the question of whether we follow the law is an important question.

00:03Obviously, we should always follow the law.

00:06I think what makes it a more difficult question is we all know that you're not supposed to steal,

00:10you're not supposed to commit fraud, but if the president orders you to fire 10% of your people,

00:16is he breaking the law?

00:17There have been accusations made by the minority party that the president's authorizing people to break the law.

00:23Well, so it's a question.

00:24Can the president hire and fire people?

00:25It's gone all the way to the Supreme Court now, and the Supreme Court is siding with them.

00:29So we have to be careful about accusing the president and saying,

00:32oh, the president's ordering his people to break the law,

00:34because actually the court so far has sided with him on that.

00:38And the court may not side with him on everything, but that's why we have courts, and it is complicated.

00:42So when Mr. Allende responds that he would ask the counsel, it's sort of like, you know, he's not the boss.

00:48He's probably a little bit removed from the president.

00:50He has to ask for counsel on it.

00:52And if you feel that the president's doing the resigning is sort of ultimately the answer on this,

00:57but it isn't, I would just argue, not always as simple as we say, follow the law, follow the law,

01:03when there's a dispute over the law.

01:05A lot of these things, like separation of powers,

01:07we are probably going to have more separation of power issues decided under President Trump

01:11because he pushes the envelope than any president in our history.

01:14And you can argue that's good or bad,

01:15but the courts have so far sided with him on the hiring and firing that that's not illegal.

01:20Note my respectful dissent from some of your characterizations, Mr. Chair.