Seth Barrett Tillman: NPR’s Planet Money, President Trump, and the Foreign Emoluments Clause

Noel King & Robert Smith, NPR Podcast #758, Can Trump Take the Money, NPR: Planet Money (Mar. 10, 2017), http://tinyurl.com/zg6cgte.
 

Noel King: Presidents and other elected officials have been so paranoid that they might seem to be in violation of [the Foreign Emoluments Clause] that they do everything they can to avoid it. In fact, in the handful of times it does come up it sounds ridiculous.

Noel King: Or if Presidents or other U.S. officials do accept gifts, they do what the [Foreign Emoluments] [C]lause says they got to do, they ask Congress for permission.

 
Dear Noel,
 
I listened to your full podcast. In fact, I listened to it twice. And then I delayed two days before writing you.
 
In your podcast (at 10:20ff), you state that Presidents have done “everything they can to avoid” application of the Foreign Emoluments Clause “or … they ask Congress for permission [to keep the gift].”
 
I find your willingness to make this claim more than a little troubling. You interviewed me for well over an hour, and you and I discussed in detail President George Washington’s diplomatic gifts: gifts which he received, acknowledged, and kept, absent any request for congressional consent.
 
[. . .]

Read Seth’s full post.

5 thoughts on “Seth Barrett Tillman: <i>NPR’s Planet Money, President Trump, and the Foreign Emoluments Clause</i>”

  1. That’s easy. NPR deserves no subsidy. The ACLU is flirting with a similar judgement as they have joined the anti-Trump “Resistance.”

    The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will livestream anti-Trump “resistance training” Saturday as it prepares to launch a grassroots mobilization campaign.

    The effort, called PeoplePower, will begin in Miami on Saturday, Reuters reported.

    The event will feature “resistance training” that will be livestreamed to over 2000 local meetings across the country.

    ACLU executive director Anthony Romero, the “Top Chef” host Padma Lakshmi and a group of legal experts are all expected to speak at the event.
    The ACLU said it’s seen a major surge in membership since President Trump’s election and is shifting from being a litigation-based organization.

    Fair enough. No federal subsidy. Also known as tax deductions.

  2. “you did so after reaching out to me”: I wish somebody would euthanise that horrible expression.

  3. Well how is the democratic party going to have enough foot soldiers if the money from the teacher’s unions, planned parenthood and the environmental agencies policies are stripped by this administration & this congress?

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