congress , the white house, supreme court and public policy events in washington dc and around thecountry . c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >>. >> good morning miami. good morning. and welcome to the 35th annual miami book fair. we are so delighted to be able to hold this they are again at miami-dade college. we ask that you please acknowledge all of our friends, please raise your hand for helping to make this possible.. >> we are also very grateful for the college y and also the

support of the knife foundation, oh l northamerica and the bachelor foundation . my name is pascale charlot, dean of the honors college and one of the hundreds of volunteers that are helping us make thispossible so please let's give a round of eeapplause for all the volunteers . >> this morning's session promises to be a very exciting one. we ask that you please turn off your cell phones at this moment. also, the session will go eson for about 45 minutes. we will have to and a and at the right moment i will appear in order to end the session . i ask that you please transition at the appropriate time and the book signing will take place. to the right of the elevator. at this time, i have the distinct honor to introduce our extraordinary panelists. first we have alan

dershowitz, one of the most famous and celebrated lawyers in the area. it was the youngest professor and harvard history where he is now the harvard frankfurter professor of law, the author of numerous books from one spot to the best suspense to reversal of fortune. and to the case for israel. he has advised many of the most famous legal cases over the past years including o.j. simpson, anatoly sharansky, michael nelkin, and mike tyson. he is the author of the case against impeaching trump. please join me in welcoming alan dershowitz. [applause] >> joining him will be david kaplan whose books include silicon void, the accidental president and mine bigger, a graduate of cornell and the new york university school a

lot ofbecause it teaches courses in herbalism and ethics at nyu and in the tradition of the nine and the brethren, the most dangerous branch ltinside the supreme court's assault on the constitution takes us inside the secret world of the supreme court. please join me in welcoming n david kaplan.we >>. >> does your book belong to the right of mine? >> we will see. >> it all depends on one's perspective . thank you for coming. this is a great group. this is myfirst miami book fair and i am totally impressed .

the lineup of speakers and to see so many readers of books and people who appreciate boxes fantastic so thank you miami book fair yfor having us both here. alan and i talked about how to proceed and we are each going to talk for five or six minutes and argue with each other and then go to answers and questions. allen's book is about impeachment, mine is about the supreme court butwe have something in common and that both these books are contrary and . on theirrespective topics , and alan and i have each been voted off our respective islands . alan quite literally had a dustup with his former friends onmartha's vineyard . they didn't like his independence and contrary and is him and for me, i'm not invited to martha's vineyard that often but my own wife pretty muchhates my book . or at least half my book.

hello to her if she's listening home which she's probably not because she's sick of listening to me talk about my book but when i gave her the book, she's my best reader and first reader and when i gave her a copy from an early draft she says i don't agreewith of your book and i said i didn't ask , i just wantyou to make it better. she says i don't want to make it better because i don't agree with it . let me give you a brief summary of my book. it attempts to do two things. one, it's an inside look at the justices. they're not demagogues, they live in this great marble temple but they're just people so whether it's chief justice roberts vanity or clarence thomas feeling enraged over his confirmation hearings 30 years ago or how neil has performed the impossible, he succeeded in

the court, nobody likes him. or how elena kagan is the hardest working of the justices and really works at her clerks hard and of course the arrival of brett kavanaugh after his recent unpleasantness. we will have questions on that and i'm happy to talk about that but what i'd like to spend my few minutes on is a serious argument in the book which is that the court is too involved in american life. it's too powerful, too interventionist and it acts because it can and not because it should. that isn't a liberal perspective, it's not a conservative perspective. and my book criticizes the court in roe versus wade which constitutional lies the

right to abortion, criticizes bush versus gore which resolved the presidential election. it criticizes the gun control ruling in 2008 at said there was an individual right to own a handgun in your own home, criticized citizens united on campaign finance and shelby county which gutted most of the voting rights as of 1965 and more tentatively suggests that obergefedt might have been put off by the court and allow legislators to ask congress to do it. that's the thrust of the argument and is a difficult argument as i've learned that. people confuse outcomes they like with whether the court ought to reach them. my own views are extremely liberal and it's a political matter on abortion.

i think that in the tragic choice between the rights of a woman and the rights of the fetus, i would air on the side of the woman but i think that decision is best made by legislators. you should win and the victory that roe created would better have been achieved in legislatures than at the court and i argue tthat for all those other cases as well, bush versus gore was the worst decision because there was a case which the constitution itself calls for resolution in congress. we could talk about any number of those cases but that's the thrust of the book and it's not merely a theoretical argument in favor of democracy. i have a couple of problems with democracy. look who's president, look who's in congress. but short of making me the monarch which isn't going to happen, i'd rather entrust our faith to democracy.

and nine unelected unaccountable judges. in the long run we do better. the court needs to step up on a range of individual and structural rights which we can talk about but i think the court has too often asserted itself. it's bad for the court's reputation, helps enfeeble congress and state legislatures. it distorts a presidential election like in 2016 when many voters on both sides of the island didn't much like their candidates but said they were voting for who they were voting amply because of who they thought the candidate would court and that was born out for trunk voters and getting gorsuch and kavanaugh. because stakes are so high, because a single vote can mean so much.

you wind up having a president inventing and a senate in voting. producing the kind of result that we had. i want to give the floor and not getting back but let me throw out the question for you that will illustrate my point. by show of hands, tell me who thinks roe v wade was a good exercise of the court's power , raise your hands? most of the room, not as many as in san francisco. keep your hands up, who nkthinks that bush the gore was a good exercise of the court's power, and all the hands come down. my impossible task today and in the book is to try to convince you that's wrong and hypocritical . alan? >> you so much. [applause]

>> you didn't have to persuade me, in 2009 wrote a book called supreme injustice in which i argued that roe versus wade was the predecessor to bush versus gore and made the argument that although like you i support a woman's right to choose , the constitutional case for roe versus wade had not been made in a compelling way, that the decision was largely political and basically led to the supreme court's eitheractivism in bush versus gore.but i not here to talk about your book, i think it's a great book . i'm here totalk about my book i will during the questions . >> don't let me stop you. >> i want to tell you a story about how my book got to be written which is not a story about me, it's a story about bipartisan is him in the united states. my book is entitled the case against impeaching trump but that was not the original title . i started to think about

writing this book when we all knew that hillary clinton would be elected president and when the republicans were vowing on the day she was inaugurated that they would move to impeach her. remember the cry lock her up. so i started to draft and think about writing a book called the case against impeaching hillary clinton. in fact, my publisher later come up with a cover tomake that point . this was the book the case against impeaching hillary clinton. when donald trump got elected president and as somebody who believes in the shoe on the other foot test, that you have to have neutral principles, i decided to take the research i have done on the case against impeaching hillary clinton and apply it to donald trumpwho i voted against, i campaign against . and had i written, had she been elected and i written the case against impeaching clinton, they would have

built a statue to me in martha'svineyard . but i wrote the exact same book substituting the word trump for clinton and now they don't want to even see me anywhere near as vineyard. >> have you thought of casing in texas? >> texas is divided, i'm happy in florida which isalso very deeply divided . and to make it clear how upset people were is about making me in the book, i had my publisher, with a third cover of plain brown wrapper of the kind that we would use when we were reading dirty books and high school and nobody would know and so now, my friends on martha's vineyard want to read my book but don't want to be ostracized and put this cover don it. so it is just an illustration of how divided our society

has become. my face against impeaching trump 's case against overusing the power of impeachment . i'm a constitutionalist. i believe in reading the constitution, at least initially literally. i believe in a living constitution but also the constitution means what it says and when the constitution is you cannot impeach except for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors, it means that. it doesn't mean maxine waters has said we can impeach anybody as long as there's a majority in the house of representatives or she wants to now not only impeach donald trump what she wants to impeach bice president pants and there are those to combine our book together who immediately want to impeach justice kavanaugh for what he did when he was 17. >> i think impeachment is a last resort in a democracy. and it should only be used in

extreme cases. we've only had one proper impeachment in our history. it was not andrew johnson, he was improperly impeach an almost remote or exercising his constitutional authority incase the supreme court said was in his favor . it was not bill clinton committed a low crime, not a high crime. it was richard nixon who was properly subjected to impeachment because he committed clear obstruction of justice. he destroys evidence, he allegedly bride witnesses. he paid hush money, he had his people lie to government officials, all of which are felonies and would have and should have been impeached but i don't think that anyone else who was now subject to impeachment it's the constitutional criteria. maybe evidence will emerge in the molar report. maybe evidence will emerge in the southern district which is a far more serious threat

to president trump in the molar investigation because he has constitutional defenses to obstruction of justice or collaboration or collusion with russia but you would not have constitutional defenses to anything he did prior to being elected president in his business dealings. they wouldn't constitute impeachable defenses but they may constitute indictable defenses after he leaves office because i don'tbelieve a president can be indicted while in office . that's the thesis to my book. we are both kind of neutral objective civil libertarians who have different views than the mainstream about results and we look at process rather than results and tell me what you think would happen when he posed a question to you to start off with. what if president trump were impeached? what if he then was removed by the senate, unlikely but

for matters that were not constitutionally authorized? what if president trump said it's interesting that the senate convicted me but i'm not leaving. i'm not going g anywhere because i believe acted unconstitutionally. do you think the supreme court would and should at that point decide that case to avoid a constitutional crisis of a president refusing to accept impeachment and removal by the house and senate? >> first i have a process question. i went to adifferent law school . do you still get to ask me questions? >> i do. not only that if people don't ask me questions, i'm a socratic teacher, i get to ask you so repair your questions. >> this is where alan and i differ. alan would argue that the court has a role in that question about what constitutes a high crime and misdemeanor. and i do not. i think this would be the classic question that the

court should stay away from. maxine waters notwithstanding, it's up to congress to determine what the constitution means. you i think the court would intervene? i'm not sure. i, along with most of the people i interview in 2000 when i was a legal affairs editor at newsweek, covering bush, nobody thought the courtwould go anywhere near bush versus gore. classic political question involving state law. nothing for the court to get involved in. we of course were wrong . don't buy the stocks i recommend but if i could see how the court might intervene but i think it would be terrifically long and it could be a high point for the court and such a hypothetical to say not our jobs, we're staying away .

>> my question is a slightly different one. i would deny the premise that you had a president for example donald trump who says there impeaching me for something that isn't impeachable, i'm sticking around . i'm not sure that such a president would abide by a supreme court's ruling and of course the notion of not leaving g office when you're supposed to which would present a constitutional crisis, a real one, not like a lot of the faith constitutional crises that are alleged on cable each night, leaving aside impeachment, what if a president after four years says i'm notleaving ? nothing to do withimpeachment . you could have a scenario where a president doesn't leave town when he or she is supposed to. i don't think it's necessarily an impeachment situation but it would be left to the other branches to

figure out. >> my question is a different one. i agree that if congress said obstruction of justice is a high crime and misdemeanor under the constitution that the supreme court would leave that interpretation of high crimes and misdemeanors of two congress. i was talking about a different situation, a maxine waters or gerald ford situation where a president was removed and something that didn't even pretend to be treason or bribery are high crimes and misdemeanors, just maladministration of office. the framers rejected a proposal by some people in the constitutional convention calling for impeachment to be permissible for maladministration of justice and if the congress decided to completely ignore the constitution, i think that a, the supreme court would and should decide constitutional issue and the, i think a president, take trump for example who said i'm not leaving because the congress acted unconstitutionally and i as the president have the

same authority to interpret constitution as congress does , i think he would have the support of his face but if he then decided to define a supreme court decision, he would lose the support of the american people just like you would lose the support of the american people if he simply decided not to leave office after his eight-year term. i think it's a question of whether the supreme court maintains its authority as the final arbiter. we now have an acting attorney general of the united states who does not believe in marbury versus madison n. notwithstanding your criticism of the supreme court i suspect he's still believing in marburyversus madison . >> is the most important decision in history. it established the courts ability. it's power to strike down an act of congress as unconstitutional or an act of cothe president ultimately as well.

>> it was such a power on the part of the justices is not stated in the constitution. it is making the law as many republicans these days accuse courts of doing. of course judges the law. you have to when you're interpreting these vague and sometimes conflicting laws. what republicans say is it's making the law when they don't like what judges do. when they like what they've done, then it's interpreting the law. in the same way nobody claims to be a judicial activist. everybody who believes in judicial restraint until it's time todo something that activists .everybody's activist and i interviewed a majority of the justices on background. i can't tell you which ones i talked to but what i would summarize to them, they asked 30 seconds on what the book was about and their response was i have to agree with your

position on the court, of course they would say that. they agree with this half of the decisions and a liberal would agree with these and a conservative would agree with people and opposite ones in truth the court's belief in its own supremacy on so many different issues at the expense of the other branches is astonishing. i would argue that the public , it's possible the publix word for such a president would dwindle after the court has ruled but i'm hardly sure. it was thnot the case in public opinion polls in bush the gore. let me askyou a question . if i might. the democrats took the presidency in 2020, just say. [applause] >> the president might be watching.

good, all the morning shows are on now. he knows full well. >> authority article, watch later. >> the democrats the presidency and the senate in the house. the democrats get their act together and it gets better at being bad. the democrats have never been very good at being bad, publicans are very good at being bad. democrats gthey were going to pull support, fdr tried it in 1937 but it was knocked down resolutely by both sides of the aisle, we live in different times . thedemocrats they were going to add both in the court . we're going to have 11 justices and take back america garland seat that was denied us. merrick garlandwas barack obama's nominee and we're going to undo what was wrong with , and horses, all it takes is an act ofcongress .

to add seats, doesn't take a constitutional amendment, any problem with that? it's legal,? >> i would end up in an hour to sign such a bill and congress's power to do it and i would strongly oppose it if i as i would have had alive during the 1930s. >>. >> it would set a terrible precedent. >> is there an argument that in order to save the institution you have to burn it down? >> i don't agree with that, the institution doesn't need saving. the supreme court is operating, i've never been a complete supporter of everything the supreme court has done. i agree that the definition of an activist is somebody right an opinion you don't agree with and judicial conservative is someone right and you agree with . the debate over whether it's alive constitution or dead is an absurd debate . i used to fight with my friend antoni elliott since i've known since he was a law professor, he would talk

about it constitution. my response is your party life. there are parts of the constitution that are dead. the requirements of a 35 the tpresident is dead. if you're the most brilliant congressperson in the world, you can't be president and if you'rehundred 17 and senile, you can be president . there is no prohibition against it. that day. on the other hand how can you n say that a part of the constitution talks about equal protection or due process or cruel and unusual punishment doesn't require some interpretation. even justice tell you a brilliant decision about whether or not the fourth amendment applies to gps that are put on the bottom of cars to distract people. what hedid is and live in the constitution . he said our framers if they had known about gps probably

would have said that it's a violation of privacy without some warrant or at least probable cause requirement so everybody sees living parts of the constitution, everybody sees that parts . then parts are easy, weatherly impeachment provision, the provision that says high crimes and misdemeanors is living or dead is a very difficult question.i think instead. i think the framers of the constitution didn't want impeachment to be done or reasons other than criminal conduct, nothing has changed. there are no new gps is. the very issues that madison and hamilton argued about are the issues we argue about today so i think that's that part of the constitution andi don't think we should try to be creative when we are accusing people of serious crimes and removing them from office . criminal law should never be alive . criminal law should always be

dead . >> you look at the words of the statute and if they don't apply, and at the end of the inquiry . check out the word pollution in the criminal statute. >> high crimes and misdemeanors is closer to those phrases like due process of law. they wanted to get a laundry list of violations or crimes that are impeachable, they could have done so. >> tell you a story about high crimes. it's an interesting story. it's a story about a man named alexander hamilton who while he was secretary of the treasury had an affair with a woman and it turned out that the woman was sent to him by her extortionist husband in order to seduce him into having the affair and then a man demanded extortion payments and he paid them. and he paid them. then the man said i need more money or else i'll accuse you of taking the money to pay them out of the treasury. alexander hamilton who helped draft and defend the impeachment provision decided to write an essay

embarrassing his wife terribly, admitting the affair, admitting paying the money denying that the money came from the treasury. accurately, it didn't come from the treasury. why do you? he understood the difference between a high crime in the low crime. adultery was a felony tapunishable by substantial prison term. he admitted that, admitting to paying extortion. that was a crime but he d did not acknowledge that he committed a high crime area because he understood the difference between a high crime and an ordinary crime and the framers understood that you . >> we're gettinga signal we should allow questions . >> those what questions i guess there's a microphone. i'm not sure i answered your question about artery. the argument about marv early against madison has largely been settled there are intelligent marks, who think that it was wrongly decided. the interesting thing about our acting attorney general who i would describe as a political, not , i haven't

agreed with all attorneys general in recent years but he does not have any of the luster or credentials that others have and remember, when he criticized barbara against madison, the court has much power. ports can be able to display unconstitutional, in the next breath for the next day he criticized the supreme court or not requiring the affordable care act unconstitutional. you can't have it bothways . >> you can if you're a politician. >> you now want to be attorney general, it's not going tohappen . >> on that we can agree. >> okay. david, i heard your interview on npr and it was excellent. this question is for you. on your opinion fon term limits and if so, do you

think that there's something citizens can do to start the ball rolling on that. >> term limits, that his tenure for justice is written into the constitution. it probably made sense once upon a time when life expectancy was 65. in my view it makes no sense and the last five justices have served an average of 30 years . if there's an active proposal before congress and in the academy for an 18 year single term limit, once the justices are gone, every president nominates somebody every two years thatwould lower the temperature .we will never happen. >> you're wrong about one thing , you could retroactively apply to justices who are now sitting, there are no limitson what amphetamine can do .

>> there enough, but the party in power will never agree. the notion that you're going to get bipartisan agreement to change things i think is unrealistic. what did you do? lobby your representatives because a constitutional amendment in most cases begins with congress adopting such an amendment but i think the more likely hreform, allen wouldn't call it reformist court. >> that is the easiest way to apply pressure. >> here's another reform and i think the senate should refuse to confirm nominees who are too young. the idea that we are now pointing fetuses to the supreme court in the hope that they will ylive on the 20 years is a distortion of the process and as somebody who turned 80, i think wisdom comes with a. i don't want to be on the supreme court, i'm too old but the idea that the bar association want won't

recommend or wouldn't recommend somebody who is over 60 is absurd. oliver wendell holmes when he was 60 years old, some of the greatest justices went on and an advanced age, the fact we're considering people in their 30s and 40s makes little sense. >> i would make a slight correction, one federal judge would note that perhaps having your bar mitzvah might be disqualification to be age-appropriate. >> as far as i remember there's nothing in the constitution about a young age. there's a limitation on congress, you have to be 25, 30 to be a senator, 40 to be president you can be 13 and the justice of thesupreme court . >> and i have two sons area. >> this is for professor dershowitz. since the governor in michigan signed legislation that says it will not do business with entity which engage with people who

boycotted strategic partners, what is the university of michigan's responsibility with regard to a student and professors of the professor and a graduate students refusal to write a letter of recommendation or students. >> it's a great question. a professor refused to write a recommendation when he found out the student was prepared to write a recommendation was going to israel. you have a right to advocate boycotting israel, that's the first amendmentrights but historically legislation as always forbidden actual boycotts , forget about israel. there's all kinds of legislation permitting secondary boycotts. in the 60s and 70s that was legislation forbidding companies from joining the arab boycott of israel ñmichigan legislation as long as it doesn't ban advocacy of bds is perfectly constitutional and michigan took the right decision disciplining the professor not for what he believed or said but for discriminating against a student based on the country that the student wanted to go to.

imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, if it was a white racist professor who refused to recommend a black woman who wanted to go and spend a year and african countries because he disagreed with the policies. there would be hell to pay and i think michigan past issue on the other foot test and i approve of its policy . >>. >> i have a comment and a question for alan . oi'd like to point out that pollution doesn't appear in the criminal code but from what i understand it would probably be prosecuted as conspiracy to commit treason or treason? >> that's impossible because treason is the only crime defined in the constitution and it's defined extremely narrowly, even i think the worst enemies of donald trump if they have a brain in their head realize you cannot charge the president with treason, conspiracy to commit

treason or anything related to treason. the charge would be conspiracy to what? affect the election or something like that. they have to make a crime and i'm against making up crimes whether there made up against democrats or republicans. >> and my question is related to that. i'd like to ask what your opinion is related to the relevancy of a living criminal code in light of what you got off of how adultery used to be legal and stuff. it does change and it changes legislatively. >> we abolished adultery as a crime, that's the way it should happen but we shouldn't be looking to the criminal law to create a solution. criminal law is always a step behind. it has to keep playing catch-up but that's the right approach, that's why we have an ex post facto clause in

the constitution refusing to apply the criminal law to matters that occurred before the conduct was criminalized . >> good morning. i find you to be terribly persuasive, i was hoping to disagree with you on a lot of your points but unfortunately i agree with you on many area i wanted to mention the shoe on the other foot, i think i reread was the one that implemented the 50 boat rule got rid of the supermajority and look where we are today . i think that was a terrible decision. >> i agree completely. >> my question is that you neglected to continue to complete the phrase high crimes and misdemeanors . you don't have to extend your judgment to realize misdemeanors that include many of the hactivities trump has taken. why have you chosen to cut the phrase short ? >> i agree it's misdemeanors but misdemeanors at the time of the framing were serious crimes. at the time of the framing there was something called capital misdemeanor.

you can get the death penalty for committing a misdemeanor. felony involves the attainment of blood and your family would suffer but misdemeanors was very serious crimes at the time of the framing so i do include misdemeanors.it's not high crimes or misdemeanors, it's high crimes and misdemeanors. so i take that seriously. >> thank you both very much, it's been fascinating. my question is you had mentioned you don't believe a sitting president can be indicted. and could you please elaborate on that? >> you want to take that? >> the justice department has the office of legal counsel l had a ruling years ago saying the president cannot be prosecuted. the impeachment provision of the constitution teams to imply that, they don't say but they imply it. a city can be prosecuted once

he leaves office, once he's impeached and removed and then negative precedent and that would be that he can't be indicted, prosecuted while in office. my colleague used to take that position when clinton was president and now he's evil. and changed his mind and now believes that a president can be indicted and prosecuted while in office my position has remained the same . >> i changed my mind . i would only weigh in that to the extent that ever became a legal issue, there was an indictment then someone challenges his word, i could see that kind of case being right or just issuable for the supreme court. i don't want the supreme court out of everything and it seems to me that the question of impeachment is a classically political matter and that's how the constitution spells it out. i think allen's attempt to

move it into the judicial system is misplaced. >> i have a question, why did the framers of the constitution say you cannot remove a president from office . only a president . and less the trial in the senate as per block presided over by the chief justice of the united states? that was aclear intent to add a judicial element to an otherwise political process. the chief justice presides. he's not there just becausehe has a pretty robe . he has to respond to legal challenges and if i were donald trump lawyer , you won't be impeached and i will be his lawyer but if i were the first motion i would take in front of the chief justice was a motion to dismiss on the grounds that there is no stated impeachable offense and the chief justice as the chief justice, a judicial officer would have to resolve that issue. >> with the caveat that my

predictions are invariably wrong, i cannot imagine a chief justice or this chief justice going near that question . i don't think any chief justice would take as a given what the house of representatives decided. this chief for all of the opinions that he's written that i criticized that showed his in my view, his greatest moment was when he upheld the affordable care act. in my report he had big problems with the statute and with its constitutionality and initially, he did vote in our private gathering of the justices. he did vote to strike down the statute oncommerce clause grounds . but he immediately went back to his chambers and asked his clerks to draft competing opinions. one that would strike down on

commerce grounds and one that would uphold it on the taxing power and when he saw the two opinions, he decided as judges say the commerce clause argument didn't make sense but he also in the best use of the word judicial politics, not partisanship, decided. he didn't say this but decided the court was best left out of the maelstrom in 2012 . the court struck down obamacare. the court would have been a central issue in the 2006 2012 presidential election and roberts whatever he thought the affordable care act decided that for the good of the court, for the good of ke the institution it was better to keep the cord out . i think it is possible and he has been railed at by conservatives and republicans including trump in 2016 ever since which drives him nuts . i wasn't surprised it him.ers

my view is he said you guys are going to be gone in twoor sifive or six years . just kidding. and i'll still be chief justice, i'm 63 years old. i could be here for 20 years but it bothered roberts. it's possible roberts is the swing vote on the court. he's not a moderate. he's not the middle of the road orthat kennedy was but by virtue of where the other justices align, is the swing vote . it's possible roberts will put the brakes on the court even on issues that are important to him like racial preferences or campaign-finance . it is possible he will say it is bad for this institution to be in the center so as to your question, if he is the nominal presiding officer, someone had to navigate. >> know, it's usually the person presiding over the senate. remember that for every other

of these you don't have to chief justice sitting only for the impeachment of a president. >> i hope we get to see how that plays out. if not for the good of the nation, for the good of my book and we can at least resolve this argument. >> i find your arguments compelling. i found your example of trump not leaving the presidency in any event chilling. >> it is i know. he probably obcouldn't say that, use it as an example but any other president but for this one i could see it happening. there are those that say he will never leave the presidency. >> he will leave at the end of his term but there is a fair argument you would not leave if he felt he was unconstitutional. >>.

[inaudible] al gore performed a tremendous service to the country when he conceded the election at a time when he didn't have to. he could have fought on. the supreme court decision was unjustified and he could have fought on politically but he decided for the best interest of the country he would accept the supreme court's decision. >> but trump is no al gore as the saying goes. >> have you ever discussed this with don mcgann? >> i do not give legal advice. the only thing i've ever said in terms of advice was on television.pi i said i'll give four pieces of advice. don't pardon, don't commute, don't tweet and don't testify and he has not followed very many of those pieces of advice except the client. >> this can go into another civil war.

working. >> it's a stronger country for surviving constitutional challenges and i have great confidence in the american public as to this constitutional issue will pass. >> i hate to be agreeing with alan on a final note as we end i do think that a lot of the chicken little sky is falling tviews you see on cable these days are a bit much. my guess is whether it's two months, eight years, this too shall pass . >> and it's the perfect way to end the panel.[applause] >> if you're interested in a book signing, exit path the elevator to the right .

>>. [inaudible] the miami book fair continues now. >> alissa quart, how do you define the middle class? >> th