Dear Readers:
In this week's video roundup, our former senior producer—and brilliant videomaker!—Landry Ayres takes on two stories from Executive Watch, our real-time tracker of presidential abuses of power. First, he explains how Trump's DOJ is arguing that defaming your accuser is part of the official duties of the presidency, in its latest attempt to make the E. Jean Carroll verdict disappear. Then, he traces how the administration reportedly threatened the Pope with a history lesson about what happens to pontiffs who cross powerful men, showing that when the usual levers of intimidation don’t work, this administration reaches for something more ominous.
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Trump’s DOJ Claims Defaming E. Jean Carroll Was Part of His Presidential Duties
In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll. Then, in September 2024, an appeals court upheld it. But the Justice Department has not given up the fight to protect Donald Trump at all costs. Its new strategy involves asking the Supreme Court to swap Trump out as the defendant and replace him with the United States itself—which, conveniently, cannot be sued for defamation. The theory, stated plainly, is that calling your accuser a liar about something you allegedly did as a private citizen decades before holding office is an official act of the presidency.
In the following clip, I explain why that argument is not just legally dubious but philosophically incompatible with the founding premise of American self-governance.
The Trump Administration Threatened the Pope for Refusing to Lend His Moral Authority to Its Wars
When Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech on Jan. 9, warning that diplomacy based on dialogue was being replaced by diplomacy based on force, the Trump administration apparently took it personally. Days later, a senior Pentagon official summoned the Vatican’s ambassador to a closed-door meeting and, according to reports, invoked the Avignon Papacy, the 14th-century episode in which the French Crown literally arrested a pope, beat him, and relocated the papacy to France for 67 years.
In this video, I trace what that encounter reveals about an administration that has run the same intimidation playbook against universities, law firms, and news outlets, and is now finding that the levers it usually pulls don’t work on the Holy See.
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Hope that the Pope excommunicates the five Catholics on the Supreme Court. It certainly would not seem unjust given that these five are blatantly opposed to the basic canons and have twisted themselves off into extremist sectarian deviations. Not that they disagree with the pope but rather they disagree with the catholic church with zealous audacity and commit the sins of vanity.
The post raises some interesting points about how political ideals can lose their original meaning over time. I think looking at historical events alongside reliable sources can help put these changes into better context. For anyone researching legal or historical matters, https://web-crims.org can also be a useful starting point for finding relevant public case information. Overall, the discussion gives plenty to think about regarding power, change, and public institutions.