• President-elect Donald Trump stopped by ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday for his first network sit-down interview since winning back the White House. During his hour-plus conversation, he reaffirmed his promise to pardon most of the people who violently stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, possibly on his first day back in office. And he said every person who sat on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack “should go to jail.” Those kinds of comments are exactly why the Biden Administration is reportedly weighing preemptive pardons for people who might become targets of Trump’s Justice Department. Kim Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and author of the book ‘Pardon Power,’ explains the significance of the presidential pardon.
• Plus, we talked with Pod Save The World’s Tommy Vietor about how a Syrian rebel militia group gained control of the country.
• And in headlines: Trump says he can’t guarantee Americans won’t end up paying more for goods under his tariff plans, The U.S. Department of Agriculture orders testing of the nation’s milk supply for bird flu, and Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral held its first mass on Sunday since a 2019 fire partially destroyed it.

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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Monday, December 9th. I’m Jane Coaston and this is What a Day, the show that wonders is this the best argument republican senator Markwayne Mullin could come up with for Fox News host and embattled Defense Secretary candidate Pete Hegseth? 

[clip of Markwayne Mullin] There’s a lot of politicians that have a drinking problem, Jake. 

[clip of unspecified Jake] Yes, um of course. But I guess my question is– 

[clip of Markwayne Mullin] Yeah. And then there’s probably a lot of media that has a drinking problem, too. 

Jane Coaston: Pete Hegseth. Hey, lots of politicians and media figures have drinking problems, too. [music break] On today’s show, we talked to Pod Save the World’s Tommy Vietor about the toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. And the USDA has also announced mandatory testing of milk for the bird flu virus. Good times. Let’s get into it. President elect Donald Trump stopped by Meet the Press on Sunday for his first network sit down interview since winning back the White House. He said a lot of stuff. About his plans for tariffs, the border and his messy cabinet picks. He spoke with host Kristen Welker for more than an hour and we’ll tell you more about the interview highlights later. But one of the major stories coming out of Trump’s interview was that he reaffirmed his promise to pardon most of the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6th, to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election. And he says he’ll do it immediately. 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] We’re going to look at everything we’re going to look at individual–

[clip of Kristen Welker] Everyone? 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] –cases. Yeah. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] Okay. 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] But I’m going to be acting very quickly. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] Within your first 100 days? First day? 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] First day. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] First day?

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] Yeah. I’m looking first day.

[clip of Kristen Welker] To issue these pardons?

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] These people have been there how long is it? Three or four years. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] Okay. 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] You know, by the way, they’ve been in there for years and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open. 

Jane Coaston: Donald, if you think the D.C. jail is bad, which it is. Let me tell you about a place called Rikers Island. Is this how we backdoor him into prison reform? Probably not. Anyway, Trump also seemed to leave the door open for going after President Joe Biden. He told Welker he won’t appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the president, but he’ll defer to his picks for attorney general and FBI director. 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] No, I’m not doing that unless I find something that I think is reasonable. But that’s not going to be my decision. That’s going to be Pam Bondi’s decision and to a different extent, Kash Patel. Assuming they’re both there and I think they’re both going to get approved. Um. But I you know, while you ask me that, what they’ve done to me with weaponization is a disgrace. 

Jane Coaston: And while Trump says he might or might not leave Biden alone, he did not provide the same assurance to members of the House panel that investigated January 6th. 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] Everybody on that committee. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] We’re going to–

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] For what they did. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] Yeah. 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] Honestly, they should go to jail. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] So you think Liz Cheney should go to jail? 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] For what they did. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] Everyone on the committee you think should be in jail?  

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] I think everybody on the, anybody that voted in favor– 

[clip of Kristen Welker] Are you going to direct your FBI director–

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] No. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] And your attorney general to send them to jail? 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] No. Not at all. I think that they’ll have to look at that. 

Jane Coaston: Those kinds of comments are exactly why Biden is reportedly weighing preemptive pardons for people who might become targets of Trump’s Justice Department. People like former Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, Democratic Senator elect Adam Schiff of California, and special counsel Jack Smith, even Dr. Anthony Fauci. But issuing those pardons would be another norm breaking move for Biden on top of his decision last week to issue a sweeping pardon for his son, Hunter. So for more on the power of the presidential pardon and its significance in this moment, I spoke with Kim Wehle. She’s a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and author of the book Pardon Power: How the Pardon System Works and Why. Kim, welcome to What a Day. 

Kim Wehle: Great to be here. Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: Okay. So Trump says he wants to pardon many of the January 6th rioters quickly, even maybe on his first day back in office. As an expert on the subject of presidential pardons, how are you thinking about that? 

Kim Wehle: He certainly has a constitutional authority to do it. And if he did it, there wouldn’t be any way to legally push back on it. But one of the I think the red lines around the use of the pardon power that presidents should think about is whether a pardon is going to make the public less safe. If a pardon will mean someone who is pardoned could go out and commit violent or other kinds of crimes. And there’s a concern that once pardoned, these folks will feel emboldened to act in a similar manner against people they believed were thwarting the election in 2020. 

Jane Coaston: Mm hmm. I mean, I keep thinking about how President Gerald Ford pardoned President Richard Nixon for the crimes he committed against the United States after Nixon resigned. What precedent does it set to pardon people who attack the U.S. government even beyond just the they could go back and do more crimes. But it basically also says, like you attacked the Capitol to stop an election from taking place or from being certified, and that’s fine. 

Kim Wehle: Well, pardons have been used to excuse terrible behavior to pardon scoundrels before. You know, Donald Trump pardoned Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn, Steve Bannon. Bill Clinton pardoned a guy by the name of Marc Rich, who had fled to Switzerland to evade tax charges and had interests, financial interests that aligned with the Clintons. So, you know, we’ve seen problematic pardons, but we’ve never seen something like January 6th. We’ve never seen the attempt by force to overthrow a legitimate election. And uh arguably the voters already endorsed that on November 5th. And certainly that’s a green light for that kind of behavior moving forward. 

Jane Coaston: Why does the president have this ability to unilaterally make someone’s criminal convictions or the threat of prosecution go away like this? Because it doesn’t seem very democratic, like the president gets to overrule both the legislative branch, which writes the laws and the judicial branch, which interprets them and applies those laws. 

Kim Wehle: 100%. That’s absolutely right. It is a relic of an unlimited monarchy. And what’s an unlimited monarchy? It’s based on what’s called the divine right of kings. The notion is that the king is directly ordained as king from God, from the divine. And so they are justice. The framers of the Constitution debated whether to include the pardon power. But ultimately, Alexander Hamilton and Federalist number 74 and also James Madison believed that there needed to be the ability to exercise mercy when the criminal justice system goes awry. And they believed the need to act swiftly could only be addressed by a single person. That to put that power in a legislature or to put that power in a committee would slow it down. But remember, you know, in common law England there was no jury trial right until the 12th or 13th century. There were no rights for criminal defendants. There was no fourth, fifth, sixth Amendment. There weren’t appeals and there wasn’t a full blown federal judicial system at the time of the framing of the Constitution either. And all those framers sort of knew each other. You know, it was all white men that had money and they all knew who was going to be in office. And I think they trusted each other to use that kind of power judiciously and with integrity. And we’re just not there anymore. We don’t have our political figures across the federal system marching forward to democracy. Half of them are embracing authoritarianism blatantly, obviously. And that is what Donald Trump seems to be promising for the next presidency. So this use of the pardon power, it’s almost been laying in wait for someone like Donald Trump to just seize its reins as he’s seizing other aspects of American democracy. 

Jane Coaston: Let’s get into how people are trying to respond to that, because Trump also says that everyone who sat on the House panel that investigated January 6th should be in jail because he loves threatening people. And that ties in to reporting that the White House is weighing preemptive pardons for people they think Trump may go after. How significant is the idea of a preemptive pardon? 

Kim Wehle: First of all, let me just state that preemptive pardon is a new term that’s kind of come up in the last week there are and I think it’s really misunderstood. A better term might be protective pardon or safe harbor pardon. But just so folks are clear, this would be pardoning for conduct that already occurred and it wouldn’t be novel in that, you know, you mentioned the pardon of Richard Nixon. Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for all crimes committed during a period of time in the past, not actual crimes that were indicted or on which someone was convicted, which is a typical pardon. So what Joe Biden would be doing is something similar to what Gerald Ford did or Jimmy Carter did for draft dodgers. And of course, he did the same thing effectively with his son, Hunter, last week. He immunized him from additional charges for a particular period of time. There’s been a lot of debate about this, and I have come down on the side that I think he should seriously consider these pardons. And I would endorse some measure of an immunity pardon, because what you’ve laid out is novel. It’s never happened before that a president has promised to use the massive power of the Justice Department, of the FBI, maybe even of the military, to go after political enemies. I mean, that is a brand new thing. And the Supreme Court in the immunity ruling this summer put gas in that tank, said if you do that, guess what? No one can touch you. The critiques of this are, well, you’re greenlighting Donald Trump to do the same thing. You know, my response is he was going to do that anyway. If you could stave off some trauma for innocent people and these would be innocent people, if you could save the country. People who did not support Donald Trump for president, the trauma of watching those trials and investigations unfold, I think it’s important to use the power of the presidency for good in this moment, even if there are downsides, even if it’s an imperfect solution. 

Jane Coaston: But would such a pardon actually stop the Trump administration from trying to prosecute his, quote unquote, “enemies” in some way, even if it’s just in the court of public opinion? 

Kim Wehle: No, it would not stop doxing on X, which has already started with Elon Musk for career people in the federal government that are just doing their jobs. It would not stop the attempt to prosecute some of these people. It would give someone the ability to go to a judge and get an order stopping the federal government from following Donald Trump’s directives. 

Jane Coaston: What do you think it signals about our democracy that one president feels like he may need to protectively pardon people who haven’t done anything wrong in order to protect them from the next president?

Kim Wehle: I wonder if this is one of the reasons why there’s been such a backlash even against the Hunter Biden pardon. And this, people across the political spectrum are outraged. And I think it’s a couple of things. One is that there’s an expectation that Joe Biden just always is very conservative in how he uses his power, even though this is what he would do is completely constitutional. It’s unseemly. And people have a certain rules set of rules for Joe Biden and another set of rules for Donald Trump. The question puts your finger on something else, which is it’s almost an admission by Joe Biden that we are heading into this danger zone where people don’t really want to believe that Donald Trump could do what he’s promised to do. And and having Joe Biden take steps to protect people, which he’s already done with his son in advance is the president admitting that this is happening. And I think that is scary for people and sobering for people. Some of us have seen it coming. And my view has to be if you’ve got the lump, you go to the oncologist. Ignoring the lump doesn’t make it go away. And better to take action early. But it’s chilling and terrifying. 

Jane Coaston: Kim, thank you so much for joining me. This has been really helpful. 

Kim Wehle: Great talking to you. Thank you for having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Kim Whaley. She is a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and author of the book Pardon Power. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts. Watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. 

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Jane Coaston: And now the news. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] The 14th Amendment, though, says that, quote, “All persons born in the United States are citizens.” Can you get around the 14th Amendment with an executive action?

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] Well we’re going to have to get a change or maybe have to go back to the people. But we have to end it. We’re the only country that has it you know.

[clip of Kristen Welker] Through an executive action you’re going to–

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] You know we’re the only country that has it. 

Jane Coaston: Donald Trump doubled down on several bananas claims on Sunday in that Meet the Press interview. Trump promised to end birthright citizenship and told host Kristen Welker the U.S. is the only country to allow it. But the World Population Review says more than 30 countries have unrestricted birthright citizenship, including our closest neighbors, Canada and Mexico. Also, when he says have to go back to the people. He means change the Constitution, which would require 38 of the 50 states to ratify. So probably not. Trump also went back and forth with Welker over his proposed tariffs against America’s three biggest trading partners. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] Economists of all stripes say that ultimately consumers pay the price. 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] Yeah. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] Of tariffs. 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] I don’t believe it.

[clip of Kristen Welker] Can you guarantee American families won’t pay more?

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow. 

Jane Coaston: But then Trump went on to claim the tariffs he enacted in his first term, quote, “cost Americans nothing.” 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] They made a great economy for us. They also solved another problem. If we were going to have problems having to do with wars and having to do with other things. Tariffs, I have stopped wars with tariffs. 

Jane Coaston: What the fuck are you talking about? Time and time again, studies, including a bipartisan one from the federal government, found Americans paid nearly the entire cost of Trump’s tariffs on China in 2018. But like Trump must have figured out a plan to address the nation’s health care, right? No. 

[clip of Kristen Welker] You said during the campaign you had concepts of a plan. Do you have an actual plan at this point for health care? 

[clip of President elect Donald Trump] Yes, we have concepts of a plan that would be better. 

Jane Coaston: At least now Americans have concepts of what to expect from Trump once he takes office for a second term. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the nation’s milk supply must be tested for bird flu. The department issued a federal order Friday. Among the new mandates, it requires dairy farmers, milk transporters and processing centers to share raw milk samples with the USDA upon request. Bird flu was first detected in dairy cows back in March, and since then, the government says hundreds of herds in more than a dozen states have been affected. In recent weeks, the disease was found in raw milk products from a California farm. Those products were pulled off shelves. But bird flu has been devastating the country’s poultry farms for years now, with more than 100 million birds affected in the last two years. Dozens of people have contracted the virus too this year, mostly people who work directly with poultry and livestock. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the risk of wider spread among humans is still low and that there have been no reports of bird flu spreading between people. But scientists worry the more the disease spreads, the more it could evolve and become more dangerous. And in other news about your food, the color of some of your favorite treats might change soon. The Food and Drug Administration is considering banning the popular food dye known as red number three. Red three is used in almost 3000 food products from Peeps to Bubblegum. And like all food dyes, only exist to market products. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing last week where senators grilled top FDA officials over what the FDA has done to address the diabetes and obesity epidemic in the United States. During the hearing, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville asked FDA Deputy Commissioner Jim Jones about red three. 

[clip of Senator Tommy Tuberville] Red three has been known to cause cancer in cosmetics. But we still allow it to be put in our food. I don’t understand that. Go ahead. 

[clip of Jim Jones] So, red three, um we have a petition in front of us to revoke the authorization for it, and we are hopeful that in within the next few weeks, we will actually we will be acting on that petition and a decision should be forthcoming. 

Jane Coaston: The GOP cares about food safety now? Fun. Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris held its first mass on Sunday after being partially destroyed by a fire in 2019. [clip of religious singing plays] The centuries old cathedral has been under construction for five years, and the restoration effort received almost a billion dollars in donations. 2500 people attended the mass and watched the concentration of the building’s new altar. Guests included French President Emmanuel Macron, First Lady Jill Biden and Donald Trump. On Saturday, the cathedral was officially reopened to the public in a ceremony that included a standing ovation for the first responders who put out the fire. And that’s the news. [music break] One more thing. Thousands of people took to the streets in Syria on Sunday to celebrate the end of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. [clip of people chanting and banging on metal] Rebel forces captured the country’s capital city of Damascus on Sunday. They were led by an Islamist militant group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or HTS. And they declared victory on national television just hours after government troops withdrew. 

[clip of interpreted member of HTS] With the help of God. The city of Damascus was liberated and the regime of the tyrant, Bashar al-Assad, was toppled. All prisoners from the prisons of the regime were liberated. 

Jane Coaston: These rebels shocked the world when they launched a new offensive against Assad’s government just two weeks ago. They quickly swept through the country and seized control of major cities like Aleppo and Hama one by one. And everything came to a head on Sunday when Assad reportedly fled to Russia and effectively surrendered. For a lot of folks, this might be the first time you’ve thought about Syria in a while. But this raging conflict has been going on for a long time. Assad’s family has ruled Syria for 50 years, the last 13 of which were defined by his ruthless actions during the country’s civil war. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died and millions more have been forced to flee their homes because of him. To talk about how we got here and what’s next. I called up Tommy Vietor, co-host of Crooked’s Pod Save The World. Tommy, welcome back to What a Day. 

Tommy Vietor: Hey, good to see you. 

Jane Coaston: So this didn’t just happen out of thin air. How did we get here? And what can you tell us about Bashar al Assad’s regime? 

Tommy Vietor: Bashar al-Assad is one of the most brutal, evil dictators in modern history, by some accounts killed between 300,000 and 600,000 of his own people in this civil war. He inherited the job of dictator of Syria from his father, who was also a brutal man who came to power in a coup. So he is a truly awful person. But you’re right. I mean, this is a story that, you know, there’s sort of like two different periods that are  we could talk about. There’s the last two weeks and the last 13 years. You tell me where you want to start. 

Jane Coaston: Well, I take that as Crooked’s foreign policy guy who knows way more than the average person. Were you just as surprised as the rest of us to see Assad’s government crumble so quickly? Because I was like, I remember when the Civil War began in like 2011, 2012, and it just kept going and going and going and going. And then the last two weeks it was like, oh they’re nearly at Damascus. Oh. Assad’s gone. 

Tommy Vietor: It was shocking to me. I mean, think there are some analysts who watched this really closely who maybe weren’t surprised, but I think most of the world was. And I think what happened was, you know, over the years, the Assad regime was hollowed out. They were not bringing in revenue. They were not paying their soldiers well. So his power base really went down and down. And then Assad’s benefactors were the Iranians and the Russians. The Russians got bogged down in Ukraine and were not able to come to his aid. The Iranians got bogged down in Lebanon, in the war in Gaza, and all these Shia militia groups that the Iranians had sent into Syria to get Assad’s back were just not able to save him this time. Also, what happened was Assad just managed to piss off basically everyone in the region diplomatically over the past many years, especially Erdogan in Turkey. And the Turks, I think, decided over time that they were going to arm groups in northwest Syria as a hedge against these Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria that they view as a mortal enemy. And HTS is one of those groups, and they made this amazing dash to Damascus over the last two weeks. 

Jane Coaston: So now they have control of the country. Who are they and what’s on their agenda? 

Tommy Vietor: Well, great question. HTS is this kind of an amalgam of opposition groups. They are led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani. He’s this 42 year old. His grandparents were from the Golan Heights. They were driven out. He moved back to Syria as a boy. He slowly became radicalized over time, including in the second intifada in the year 2000. He fought in Iraq. He was briefly held by the US at Camp Bucca, which is a prison there. And over time, he pledged allegiance to ISIS. He pledged allegiance to Al Qaida. He founded the al-Nusra Front in Syria, but says he did an interview with CNN the other day where he says that he has moderated, he has renounced these sort of transnational terrorist organizations and now wants to lead in a way that’s Islamist in nature, that respects the rights of minorities, that doesn’t you know want to attack the U.S. or other Western countries. We don’t know if he’s sincere about that. We don’t know if this is PR, if he’s truly moderated his views. We don’t even know if he’ll be in charge in a few weeks, if not a few years. So there’s a lot of open questions. 

Jane Coaston: How has the international community reacted to the news? Which countries have something to gain or lose now that Assad has been overthrown? 

Tommy Vietor: So the Russians lost a lot. They lost a major naval port. They lost an airbase in Syria. I mean, they can maybe keep control in some way, but Assad was their guy. So they lost their guy. The Iranians lost a key ally in Syria. The I think the Israelis are probably pretty nervous. They went from kind of a wary, you know, detente with Assad to a potentially an Islamist government right on their border. So I think they’re watching with some trepidation. But I think the big winner here are all these Syrian families who now know, you know, the fate of their loved ones or hopefully will or had them released from prison. And these millions of Syrian refugees who had to either be, you know, internally displaced from their homes and can maybe go back to Damascus or a city like Aleppo and, you know, get their life back, or the many who went to Europe or other countries um and now are living abroad and want to come home. So those people hopefully will be the big winners here. Of course, we don’t know how this story is going to end. This is sort of one chapter of the Syrian civil war ending. 

Jane Coaston: I think a lot of people, including Donald Trump, are saying that the U.S. should not get involved. Is that likely? And how would U.S. involvement, lack of involvement, change things? 

Tommy Vietor: Well, so the U.S. is involved. I mean, U.S. Central Command bombed a bunch of ISIS targets in central Syria on Sunday. Dozens of them, in fact. The U.S. has troops in Syria. You have troops in Jordan. We have worked a lot with these Kurdish forces to combat ISIS. I guess time will tell if Trump decides to bring those troops home. But I, you know, I think it is absolutely a good thing that this decapitation of Assad happened by Syrians because they wanted it to happen and not because of some U.S. intervention. But I do think there is going to be a moment for the international community to help the country with some desperate economic needs, with a political process, with caring for refugees who decide to return home. And I do hope there is a place for economic support from Europe and the U.S. and also diplomatic support. 

Jane Coaston: Tommy, as always, thank you for being here. 

Tommy Vietor: Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Tommy Vietor, co-host of Crooked’s Pod Save The World. To dive deeper into this historic moment and what it means for the rest of the world, listen to the new special episode of Pod Save The World out today where Tommy and his co-host, Ben Rhodes, break it all down. 

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you liked the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Be glad you’re not one of the astronauts who have been in space for six months and have two more months to go because it’s too risky to bring them back earlier and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just about how actually the astronauts are being really chill about the whole thing, saying it’s just an unexpected detour into the vastness of evil space and quote, “living in space is super fun,” like me What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston. And let’s be clear. No space, no caves, no mountain peaks, no sinkholes, and seriously, no space. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. 

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