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Angus King: “When you have the legislative and executive power in the…”

Featuring: Angus King, Independent | U.S. Senate Maine

American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride

Published April 17, 2025 | Video Starts at 03:16

He used the word tyranny. This is no joke. And later on in the same essay, he said, When you have the legislative and executive power in the same set of hands, freedom can't survive. So that's why I'm so passionate about this, because it goes beyond doge and immigration and all of the other things. (03:16–03:22)

CLAIM

Claims that combining legislative and executive powers threatens freedom, referencing Madison's Federalist Papers.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Angus King

“Tomorrow happens to be the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere's midnight ride from Boston to Lexington and Concord.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 01:07-01:16
“70% of the people in nursing homes in Maine today are being paid for by Maine Care, which is our version of Medicaid.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 34:59-35:07
“We've lost like 10 [nursing homes] in the last two or three years [in Maine].”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 35:34-35:36
“None of the conflicts we've been in since [1942] has Congress declared war.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 37:41-37:47
“The president [is] being the legislator and the executive at the same time.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 02:11-26:17
“The administration is seizing more and more power, for example, wiping out a whole agency that Congress created.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 02:17-02:27
“The executive doesn't have the power to do that. Only the Congress can do that.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 02:26-02:32
“We don't have the votes [to stop current actions].”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 02:26-02:30
“The concentration of the legislative, judicial and executive power into one set of hands is a perfect recipe for tyranny.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 02:56-03:10
“History tells us that if you have too much power in one set of hands, it inevitably devolves into abuse of the citizens.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 04:32-04:43
“Parties were not, didn't exist at the time of the drafting of the Constitution.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 06:51-06:56
“The Constitution assigns managing foreign trade directly to the Congress, Article 1, Section 8.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 07:43-07:51
“This president is declaring an emergency that doesn't really exist to single handedly create this chaotic tariff regime.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 08:05-08:15
“The courts are doing pretty well as a guardrail.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 08:58-09:01
“Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, and Chuck Grassley, Mr. Republican of Ohio, introduced a bipartisan bill to pull the tariff power…”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 10:11-10:23
“They're claiming the right to scoop people up with no process whatsoever and say, we think you're a member of Ms.13.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 13:24-13:32
“The President also last week mused about, yeah, let's send some of our homegrown people there.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 13:39-13:46
“The Constitution talks about no person, by the way. It says, no person, not to no citizen, no person shall be denied life, liberty or…”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 14:04-14:15
“The president was out on social media last night just railing about the idea that these people that came in from Haiti and Venezuela under…”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 14:14-14:25
“Article 2 of the Constitution, which gives the President what power he or she has, is very limited.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 15:11-15:18
“The President only really is given two, I'd say one and a half unilateral powers. The one is the power of pardon.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 15:20-15:30
“Congress has the power to declare war in the first place, not the President.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 15:43-15:48
“The real operative phrase in Article 2, which is all about the presidency, is his responsibility is to, quote, take care that the laws be…”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 15:50-16:02
“I don't think anybody's seen the agreement. I understand it's $6 million for a year for a certain number.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 18:32-18:38
“We're not getting the information that we should get.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 18:45-18:48
“We've been trying to get information, for example, about the signal gate debacle.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 18:55-19:00
“Congress is failing as a guardrail.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 21:06-21:11
“The elections aren't for 19 months.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 21:35-21:39
“The overreach is getting worse every day.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 22:56-23:00
“Our oath is to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 23:22-23:30
“Emails and calls are important because it makes it clear to us that people are paying attention.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 24:59-25:08
“Constituents get more weight [in correspondence].”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 25:22-25:26
“Loss of agriculture funds that pay farmers for food to go to food banks.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 27:53-27:58
“Cut off of school lunch funds.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 27:58-28:01
“We need to rebuild the separation of powers, and the various branches, particularly the Congress, have to take their responsibility…”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 29:21-29:31
“Executive orders are not laws. They're orders to the executive branch in order how to administer the laws, but they're not laws.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 29:54-30:04
“The president doesn't have the right to decide which laws he likes, which agencies he likes that were created by Congress, or which funding…”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 31:20-31:30
“He's talking about taking the licenses away from CBS because they ran a 60-minute segment he doesn't like.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 32:31-32:39
“A lot of the powers that this president is abusing...is because Congress basically copped out of their responsibility years ago, like on…”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 36:12-36:28
“It's right in the Constitution. Our job is trade. Our job is commerce among nations.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 36:28-36:35
“Congress is very specifically delegated the power to declare war.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 37:28-37:33
“A lot of what's going on here is not necessarily usurpation of power by the President...as it is abdication by the Congress.”
American Conversations: Senator Angus King (I-ME), on Paul Revere's Ride | Uploaded April 17, 2025 | 37:58-38:08