Clip: Breaking down Trump's first week of 'shock and awe'

Jeffrey Goldberg: Charlie, I want to turn to the broader picture here, Trump and the rule of law. You've been covering a lot of these issues and I'm wondering, simply put, what is this, what is the thing that -- apart from the January 6th part, what's the thing that's most surprised you about some of these executive orders so far?

Charlie Savage: So, as I was processing that blizzard of executive orders that Trump signed on the night of Inauguration Day, suddenly dozens are showing up, he was sitting in the Oval Office stack after stack after stack, you know, it's very different than eight years ago. I think he issued four executive orders in his first five days.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Most of that first day was Sean Spicer trying to defend outrageous claims about crowd size.

Charlie Savage: They knew what they were doing this time. This was well prepared, this was scripted, these things were written. And he was really pushing at the limits of legitimate executive authority with some of them.

The pardons we've just been talking about, as I just said, may not be a good idea, but there's no doubt he could do that. The Constitution clearly lets the president do that. Some of the stuff that's in these executive orders is quite different. He's, for example, you know, it all seems like a million years ago we were talking about TikTok, but he's directing the government to essentially suspend this law that was passed by bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress signed by President Biden, upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court just a couple days ago, and he said, we're just going to suspend it. It doesn't exist. How does he have the power to do that?

You know, the Constitution says the president shall take care of the laws, be faithfully executed. He's just doing it. He's invoking commander-in-chief powers to -- in some of his immigration actions. He's saying we're just not going to -- we're going to treat migrants as invaders. He's activating North Com to develop a military campaign on domestic soil.

Jeffrey Goldberg: The word invasion is used very deliberately in some of these documents.

I want to ask you about the immigration. He ordered an end to birthright citizenship. Well, he ordered it and then, very predictably, because it is in the Constitution, a judge, a Ronald Reagan-appointed judge, said, what are you doing? You can't do that. Any lawyer, any first year law student knows that, any judge is going to put a stop to that, or at least a temporary block on that. So, what's going on there?

Laura Barron-Lopez: Why do it?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Why do it?

Laura Barron-Lopez: Well, because supporters and allies of Donald Trump who once were considered more on the fringe, whether it's Stephen Miller or John Eastman, a lawyer from California who wanted -- you know, this is their project. They had long wanted to challenge birthright citizenship. And Trump said, okay, let's do it.

I was told by a source close to the White House that some inside want this to be successful. Some inside the White House want this to be successful. Some inside the White House want this to go to the courts and get killed, so then that way they never have to touch it again. Because they don't believe that they accurately say that in the Constitution, it says that he doesn't have the ability to --

Jeffrey Goldberg: A pragmatically futile attempt to overturn the Constitution.

Laura Barron-Lopez: But I think with others, the Trump White House is looking forward to the court challenges, whether it's in immigration, not necessarily connected to birthright citizenship, or whether it's in -- whether or not they can take back some of the power of the purse from Congress. They want to be able to use what's known as impoundment authority to disperse federal funds however they see fit. And they want that challenge to go to the Supreme Court, and they hope that with some of these that they're able to get favorable ruling.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Ashley, where are the Democrats in all of these controversies? I mean, this is not 2017 with mass rallies and protests, but it just doesn't seem as if the Democratic Party is coming out in force to say, oh, you know what, maybe don't let the leader of the Proud Boys out of jail.

Ashley Parker: I mean, am I allowed to say it, that the Democrats are in disarray?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, you are allowed to say that Democrats --

Laura Barron-Lopez: They said that they are.

Ashley Parker: Yes, they said that they are.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Democrats continue to be in disarray.

Ashley Parker: I mean, you're right. What is so striking is this sort of very forceful and energizing resistance that Democrats put up for so long has dissipated, at least in this moment. And when you look at what they're saying and when you talk to them, some of them are kind of candid about their -- they're trying to regroup and retrench, right? They just lost an election. As we're talking about, there's, which is what Trump always does, this shock and awe fire hose of things, which is even just from a political messaging standpoint, which one do you go after. Is it immigration? Is it the pardons? Is it withdrawing from the World Health Organization or the Paris Climate, you know? So, they're regrouping.

And Democrats also are in a bit of a, an effort to reconstitute the party where Donald Trump and Republicans were able to claim a lot of the policies of Democrats as their own. I mean, if you look back at when Biden was the nominee, it is so striking that Scranton Joe ceded being the advocate of the middle class in the American worker to Donald Trump, that Donald Trump was able to take that mantle from him. And that's something Democrats are trying to grapple with too.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, quickly, who is going to lead the Democrats into array? And who are the -- it doesn't seem like anybody is sort of remotely ready to seize the mantle of direction and leadership. Obviously, there are people -- there are the so called normie Democrats, you hear Elissa Slotkin and people like that talking about, let's not talk about identity thing, race, gender, let's not obsess about -- let's just talk about the things that people want to talk about.

But where is -- is there anybody yet you've seen who says, oh I'm going to take this by the horns and deal with it?

Ashley Parker: I think the thing I've heard the most, and again, this is more from the normie Democrats, is this effort to wrest the party back from the activists and from the groups and --

Jeffrey Goldberg: The so-called groups.

Ashley Parker: The so-called groups. And I've heard people say, the next time a group says, you know, if you don't take this sort of very out of the mainstream leftist position, we're going to blast you in a primary, the answer should be, okay, so blast us because we don't all want to be, if you're a Democrat, standing up on stage and raising your hand for something that will get you killed in a general election.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. I want to -- one more topic I want to raise, and obviously there are a million topics brought up by these actions this week, but President Trump's decision to pull security off of three figures, his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, his former national security adviser, John Bolton, and his former advisor on Iran, Brian Hook, all of whom are under death threats from the government of Iran.

These are people that all worked for Donald Trump, they got on Donald Trump's bad side for one reason or another. Leigh Ann, this is way, way, way outside the norm of Washington behavior. How much danger are these men in? And are there people in the Republican caucus, people on -- Republicans on the Hill who are saying, you can't do that?

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: They're under -- go on.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: I mean, so, I don't know how much danger they are in. I'm not talking to intelligence officials. But what I will say is this is Trump promised retribution and this is it. It's not just retribution for Liz Cheney and Democrats, but it's retribution for people who have wronged him. And this is one way that he's able to use his strings to do that.

This is not something that has come up on Capitol Hill. I will say, like we all are, Republicans and Democrats are drinking through a fire hose right now. Every single aide that I talk to is literally exhausted and overwhelmed and cannot even jump from one topic to another.

So, I think that this is not even resonating yet on Capitol Hill. And, Charlie, you might have a lot more on the intel side.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes. Charlie, let me give you the -- I'll give you the last word if you can answer the question, is this so far out of the bounds of what a Washington norm traditionally has been that people don't even have the language to deal with the fact that the president is cutting these guys adrift when they carried out his order to assassinate Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian terrorist leader?

Charlie Savage: I mean, well put. I can't build on that much. But. you know, it's not just about, I think, bullying people that he's decided were once his, you know, minions, but, you know, criticized him in some way and now are out of the tent, but it's also about striking fear in his current minions that they better not do anything but toe the line because look what happens when you're out of the tent. You're really out of the tent.

And, you know, the physical danger aspect of that resonates for me with what Mitt Romney and others talked about during the second impeachment, where Republicans supposedly were saying to each other they wanted to vote to convict Trump but they were afraid for their own physical safety and that of their family after January 6th.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: And the reason Mitt Romney did not endorse Kamala Harris.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right, exactly. Unfortunately, we need to leave it there for now. It's been a great conversation. And I want to thank our panelists and our viewers for joining us.