President Obama’s first use of executive privilege has sparked outrage, of course.
Melissa Harris-Perry
Clinton used it fourteen times. Bush, six. As Obama uses his executive privilege for only the first time, why all the outrage? Could it be because Attorney General Eric Holder is a Republican target after looking into the legality of new voter-suppression laws? Nation columnist Melissa Harris-Perry looks at the history of executive privilege, and how Obama is fashioning himself into a strong, sometimes unilateral leader heading into November’s election. She’s joined by NYU Law School professor Kenji Yoshino and Yahoo! News’s David Chalian to discuss Obama’s attempts at bipartisnaship and how lately he’s come to embrace the power of his office.
—Max Rivlin-Nadler
Melissa Harris-PerryTwitterMelissa Harris-Perry is the Maya Angelou Presidential Chair and Professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs and the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Wake Forest University. She is also the co-host of The Nation’s System Check podcast.